MOSUL, Iraq, (Reuters) – A suicide car bomber killed  38 people as they left a Shi’ite Muslim mosque just outside the  volatile northern Iraqi city of Mosul, officials said yesterday,  while bombs in Baghdad killed another 12.

Police said 140 people were wounded in the suicide bombing,  one of several attacks in recent weeks targeting Shi’ite  religious gatherings. The provincial governor, Atheel  al-Nujaifi, said 37 people died in the attack and 276 were  wounded. A week ago a series of blasts outside Shi’ite mosques in  Baghdad killed 31 people. Sunni Islamist militants like al  Qaeda, who consider Shi’ites heretics, are often blamed.

“I was in the house when this explosion happened. I hurried  to the mosque to search for my father in the ruins…I found him  seriously wounded, and took him to hospital, but he died,” said  Khalil Qasim, 19, crying.

Mosul authorities urged citizens to donate blood and  appealed for construction vehicles to lift debris trapping  victims of the attack, which took place in Shreikhan, a majority  Shi’ite Turkmen village just north of Mosul city.

Bombings and shootings are reported almost daily in Mosul.

The insurgency in Iraq has waned in the last 18 months, but  insurgents have been able to hide out in the mountainous areas  around Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, and have  exploited divisions between Mosul’s feuding Arabs and Kurds.