Iraqi police and US troops have arrested 15 people following the devastating suicide attacks against Shia pilgrims as authorities tried to discover how militants staged Iraq's bloodiest attacks since the war ended.
There were contradictory death tolls from bombings at Shiite holy shrines in Baghdad and Karbala.
And new explosions rang out in Baghdad today, when three missiles hit a telephone exchange building. Police said the missiles wounded one Iraqi and damaged the building in the capital's Mansour neighbourhood.
The American count of the dead from yesterday's bombings was revised down, from 143 to 117, a senior coalition official said. But Iraq's Health Ministry said 185 people were killed, and some unofficial Iraqi death totals were as high as 230.
Estimates of the wounded ranged from 300 to more than 400.
The confusion reflected the chaos yesterday when suicide attackers set off their bombs and explosives apparently brought in on wooden pushcarts detonated among thousands of pilgrims gathered in the two cities for the holiest day of the Shia calendar, the mourning ceremony of Ashoura.
The coalition official said 15 people were detained in Karbala after the blasts, nine of them in Iraqi custody.
The others, being held by coalition forces, included four Farsi speakers thought to be Iranians. An estimated 100,000 Iranians were believed to have come to Iraq for Ashoura, and many Iranians are present around the holy shrines throughout the year.
US officials and Iraqi leaders named an al-Qaida-linked Jordanian militant, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, as a "prime suspect" for the attacks, claiming he is seeking to spark the first ever Sunni-Shia civil war in Iraq.
Iraq's US-appointed Governing Council pleaded with Iraqis to remain united - an attempt to avert reprisals.
PA