Washington - More than 130 Iraqis and seven US soldiers were killed yesterday in one of the deadliest days of insurgent attacks since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

More than 60 Shia pilgrims were killed when a suicide bomber wearing a vest stuffed with explosives blew himself up outside the Imam Hussein shrine in Karbala in an attack certain to increase tensions between Iraq's Sunni and Shia Muslims.

In the insurgent stronghold of Ramadi dozens were killed when a suicide bomber attacked a queue of about 1,000 police recruits at a police-screening centre. Recruits later got back in line to continue the screening process.

Iraq's prime minister, Ibrahim Jaafari, denounced the violence as an attempt to derail the political process when there was progress towards including the Sunnis in a new, broad-based government. But Iraq's largest Shia party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Sciri), blamed Sunni Arab groups that fared poorly in the December 15 elections for inciting the violence. Sciri warned that Shia patience was wearing thin and accused the US-led coalition of restraining the Iraqi army and police.

In Karbala, one of Shia Islam's holiest cities, the suicide bomber blew himself up in a busy pedestrian area surrounded by shops about 30 metres from the Shia shrine. After the attack, a woman and an infant girl in a red jumpsuit lay in a pool of blood, their faces covered by a sheet. Television images showed men ferrying the wounded in barrows.

Akram Saleh, a street vendor, told Associated Press he lost consciousness after the explosion. "I was selling toys near the shrine when I flew into the air because of the explosion," he said from hospital, where he was being treated for burns and bruises.

Five US soldiers died near Baghdad when a roadside bomb hit their vehicle. Two more soldiers were killed near the southern city of Najaf when a similar device destroyed their Humvee. At least 2,188 members of the US military have died since the war began, according to Associated Press.

More than 240 people have been killed and 280 wounded since the new year, a death toll comparable with some of the bloodiest weeks since the US-led invasion in March 2003. Insurgents also continued their attacks on the country's infrastructure, sabotaging an oil pipeline near the northern city of Kirkuk, causing a huge fire.

The deadly attacks came as the US president, George Bush, chaired a meeting at the White House of former defence and state secretaries, some hostile to the administration's Iraq policy, for a discussion on the war. The president, who has been accused of living in a bubble and consulting only a tight circle of aides, promised to "take to heart" suggestions that he listen to more than a dozen foreign policy leaders from previous administrations, Democrat and Republican.

"Not everybody around this table agreed with my decision to go into Iraq. I fully understand that," the president said. "But these are good solid Americans who understand that we've got to succeed now that we're there. I'm most grateful for the suggestions they've given. I take to heart the advice."

The president then offered a quick summation of his strategy in Iraq: "We're making darn good progress."