Karbala, Iraq  - In a sign of improved security, a European tour group visited antiquities and monuments near the southern Iraqi city of Karbala, the city's tourism authority said on Tuesday.

The group, which included British, Russian and other European tourists, visited archaeological sites near Karbala, was the first of its kind to visit Karbala in "many long years," according to Karbala's tourism authority.

If Karbala has appeared in the news, it has often been as the site of horrific bomb attacks. In February, a woman killed more than 50 people and wounded at least 83 others when she detonated explosives strapped to her body in the town of Iskandariyah, not far from Karbala.

Last year, as then-US Vice President Dick Cheney arrived in Iraq, a bomb planted in a crowded area in Karbala killed 52 people and injured 75 more.

The return of European tourists signals the extent to which security has improved in the city, Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa's correspondent in Karbala said.

Tuesday's group, which Karbala's tourism authority described as "ten, mostly elderly, tourists of various European nationalities," visited the late-Stone-Age cave dwellings at al-Tar, or Dhi, as it is also known, which archaeologists say were inhabited some 50,000 years ago.

The group also visited the Abbasid palace at al-Khaidhar, which archaeologists consider one of the most important examples of early Islamic architecture, and Qasr Shamaoun, an early center of Iraq's ancient Jewish population.

Iraq's tourism authority hopes the country's myriad archaeological and historical sites will attract tourists back to the country after years of war and international isolation under Saddam Hussein's rule. (dpa)