Sunni-led insurgents killed at least nine people with a car bomb in a crowded vegetable market Friday, the Muslim day of worship, in the second blast against Shiite civilians in as many days, police said. The death toll rose to nearly 100 from the previous day's attacks in another Shiite town.

Elsewhere, in the southern city of Basra, an Iraqi police convoy was ambushed late Thursday, killing four policemen and wounding one, said police Capt. Mushtaq Khazim.

Car bombs have killed more than 110 people, 25 of them children, in a surge of violence in Iraq ahead of an October 15 referendum on a new constitution.

One of the four car bombs ripped through a crowded market in the southern town of Hilla killing at least 12 people and wounding 47 on Friday, police and health officials said.

In the mainly Shi'ite town of Balad, north of Baghdad, the death toll from three huge car bombs on Thursday rose to 98 on Friday, hospital director Kassim Aboud said.

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