Eight members of a militia linked to Iraq's powerful Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr were killed Thursday in a bomb blast north of Baghdad, security sources said.

The roadside bomb exploded when a convoy of Saraya al-Salam drove along a highway near Samarra, one source said, adding that several people were also wounded in the attack.

One of the eight militiamen killed was a commander who took part in anti-jihadist operations in Iraq, said another source.

Samarra -- a Sunni majority region -- is home to a major Iraqi security headquarters and to an important Shiite shrine where a 2006 bombing touched off two years of sectarian bloodletting.

The militia, led by Sadr whose political alliance triumphed in May 2018 parliamentary elections, has been deployed in the Samarra region since 2014 when the Islamic State group swept across Iraq. </s> At least 50 people have been killed and over 80 more injured in a pair of gun and car bomb attacks in the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah, Reuters reports, citing health officials. Iranian media said that among the victims were Iranian pilgrims.

In the first attack, a group of gunmen entered a restaurant off the Dhi Qar highway and began shooting at random, hitting at least 50 people, local media reports.

Shortly afterward two suicide bombers, including one driving a car rigged with explosives, blew themselves and the car up at a security checkpoint nearby, Iraqi officials told AFP.

The survivors being taken to the al-Batha and Nasiriyah hospitals, Press TV reports.

Jassem al-Khalidi, a senior health official, told the TV channel that more than 87 people had sustained injuries in the attacks.

No group has so far claimed responsibility for the attacks. Nasiriyah is the capital of Dhi Qar Governorate, which has a large Shiite population. Shiites and other ethnic and religious minorities have often been targets of Sunni militants in Iraq, including al-Qaeda and Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL). </s> The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for a series of deadly attacks in Iraq since mid-October including three since New Year's Eve.

The latest on Monday saw at least 32 people killed in a suicide car bombing that targeted a Shiite neighbourhood of the capital Baghdad.

At least 27 people were also killed by twin explosions in a busy market area in central Baghdad on New Year's Eve, while another seven died on Sunday in an attack south of the Shiite shrine city of Najaf.

They were the latest in a spate of attacks since the army launched an offensive in mid-October to recapture Mosul, the country's second city and last remaining IS stronghold in Iraq. One on November 25 saw 70 people, mostly Shiite pilgrims, killed south of Baghdad.

The wave of violence has shocked many, but the attacks are still far from the deadliest since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003:

- July 3, 2016: 323 people are killed when a suicide truck bomber attacks a shopping area in the Baghdad district of Karrada.

- October 25, 2009: 153 people are killed and more than 500 wounded when two car bombs explode in Baghdad.

- August 14, 2007: More than 400 people are slaughtered when four suicide truck bombs target members of the ancient Yazidi religious sect in two Kurdish villages in northern Iraq.

- July 7, 2007: At least 140 people are killed in a suicide truck bombing in Amerli village in northern Iraq.

- April 18, 2007: A wave of car bomb attacks on Shiite districts of Baghdad leaves 190 dead.

- March 27, 2007: An anti-Shiite attack in the northern town of Tal Afar kills 152.

- February 3, 2007: A suicide truck bomb attack in a Baghdad market kills at least 130.

- November 23, 2006: At least 202 die in a string of car bombings in Baghdad's Sadr City.

- September 14, 2005: At least 128 people are killed in a series of suicide bombings in Shiite districts of Baghdad.

- March 2, 2004: Bomb attacks on Shiites in the holy city of Karbala and in Baghdad kill more than 170.
A roadside bomb blast kills 8 Shiite militiamen and wounds others.