BAGHDAD, Dec. 21 (Xinhuanet) -- The authorities in Iraq's Shiite holy city of Najaf have detained 50 suspects after Sunday's suicide car bomb attack and prevented cars from entering the city center, governor Adnan al-Zurfi said Monday.

    The latest death toll of Sunday's car bomb blast near the Imam Ali shrine in Najaf rose to 54 and at least 142 were wounded.

    "The city authorities have detained 50 people in connection to the car bombing, some of them were detained in Najaf and others were outside. One of the detainees was captured this morning and was an Arab national," al-Zurfi told reporters after he joined thousands of Najaf people in a funeral procession held for the victims of the attack.

    Al-Zurfi said the authorities would block the roads leading to the city center where the Imam Ali shrine is located to prevent more car bombings.

    Sunday's attack in Najaf came just two hours after another suicide car bomber exploded his vehicle near the main bus station in Karbala, another Shiite holy city about 70 km northwest of Najaf.

    The bombing killed 14 people and wounded 40 others, according to hospital officials in the city.

    UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Monday condemned the fresh wave of terrorist attacks in Iraq, including the twin bombings anda day-light murder of three election workers who were gunned down by armed men in Baghdad.

    UN spokesman Fred Eckhard told reporters that Annan denounced these attacks "in the strongest possible terms."

    "The secretary-general once again calls on all Iraqis not to be deterred by these attacks and to come together in a spirit of national reconciliation," the spokesman said.

    The United Nations will continue to do everything possible to assist the Iraqi people in holding elections and in completing their political transition in an orderly way, said Eckhard.

    In Washington, US President George W. Bush told a press conference that Iraq's elections, scheduled for January 30, will be held as planned despite increasing deadly violence.

    Speaking after the bomb attacks in Najaf and Karbala, Bush said insurgents were intent on delaying the elections.

    "There are very hopeful signs but, no question about it, the bombers are having an effect," he said. "They're trying to shake the will of the Iraqi people and, frankly, trying to shake the will of the American people."

    But the president noted that "the terrorists will fail, the elections will go forward, and Iraq will be a democracy that reflects the values and traditions of its people."

    Iraqi interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi also lashed out at theattackers, saying "the message shows their resolve to destroy the unity of this country and to wage a sectarian war."

    He warned the insurgents that Iraq's interim leadership would "break their backs."

    Also on Monday, 14 people were killed in attacks around central Iraq as insurgents ambushed them, who were suspected of collaborating with US forces.

    Four men driving in a sports utility vehicle were hit by a roadside bomb and then gunfire in Ashaki, south of the Sunni hotspot of Samarra.

    The bodies, three of them thought to be those of foreigners, were picked up by other cars in the dead men's convoy, police said.

    Earlier, an Iraqi truck driver leaving a US military base near the town of Yethrub, north of Baghdad, was shot dead. An Iraqi translator for the US military was also killed by unknown gunmen near Salman Pak, about 30 km southeast of Baghdad.

    Meanwhile, an Iraqi woman died and three civilians wounded when a roadside bomb exploded on the road between the restive cities of Samarra and Fallujah.

    Near Tikrit, a Turkish truck driver was killed by a bomb, whilein Samarra, two members of the National Salvation party, set up by former Saddam-era intelligence chief Wafiq al-Samarrai, were shot dead, police said.

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