By Laith Hammoudi | McClatchy Newspapers

BAGHDAD — At least 25 civilians were killed and more than 75 were wounded when a bomb in a parked car detonated early Wednesday inside a marketplace in a small southern Iraqi town, medical officials said.

The bomb detonated around 9 a.m. local time in Bathaa, a town west of Nasiriyah in southern Iraq, when the market was the most crowded.

Security forces, who'd been tipped that there might be two more car bombs, surrounded the market and prevented people and vehicles from entering the area.

(Hammoudi is a McClatchy special correspondent.)

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