HILLA, Iraq (Reuters):

Insurgents killed 112 Shi'ite pilgrims streamingto the holy Iraqi city of Kerbala yesterday, including nearly 80 after two suicide bombers blew themselves up in one crowded street lined with tents.

The attacks, just over a year since the bombing of a Shi'ite shrine in the city of Samarra, are likely to increase sectarian tensions between majority Shi'ites and Sunni Arabs that are pushing the country to the brink of all-out civil war.

In the worst incident, two suicide bombers strapped with explosives detonated themselves in the city of Hilla, south of Baghdad, killing 78 people, police said. Tents offering food, drink and resting areas for the pilgrims lined the busy street.

"I saw one of the suicide bombers. He was about 40 years old. He blew himself up and I saw parts of bodies flying around," a witness who declined to give his name told Reuters.

Another witness described scenes of chaos, with sandals and tattered clothes lying among pools of blood and tents on fire.

"I watched the second bomber run into the crowd and blow himself up. Everyone around him was shredded to pieces," the witness told Reuters as he sobbed.

Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki blamed Sunni militants for what he called a "barbaric crime", according to a statement carried by Iraqiya state television.

Security in Hilla had been tight for fear of a repetition of suicide bombings and attacks against Shi'ite religious rituals by suspected Sunni insurgents of the sort that killed 171 people in Baghdad and Kerbala in March 2004.

Insurgents also launched attacks against pilgrims in and around Baghdad, defying again a major U.S.-Iraqi security crackdown by Maliki aimed at wresting control of the capital's street from militants.

Among the other attacks, a car bomb in the southern Baghdad district of Doura killed 12 people, police said.