41 killed as bomb attacks hit Shiites
Print Edition
A SUICIDE bomber and twin explosions targeted Shiites marking a somber religious ritual in Iraq yesterday, killing at least 41 people and wounding more than 100 others, officials said.
The ritual, known as Ashoura, is observed every year over a 10-day period and has been marred previously by massive attacks by al-Qaida and other Sunni extremists who see Shiites as heretics.
This year, the attacks come amid an escalating campaign of violence by insurgents seeking to thwart the Shiite-led government’s efforts to maintain security.
The deadliest of the attacks was in the town of al-Saadiyah, 140 kilometers northeast of Baghdad, where a suicide bomber struck a group of Shiites gathered for an Ashoura event. The explosion killed at least 32 people and wounded 75, police said.
The Shiites at the Saadiyah gathering were recreating the 7th century battle of Karbala, a city in present-day Iraq.
Ashoura commemorates the death of Prophet Mohammed’s grandson, Imam Hussein, in that battle.
Earlier in the day, two bombs exploded simultaneously near tents set up to offer food and drinks to Shiite pilgrims passing through Hafriyah, a town about 50 kilometers south of the Iraqi capital, police said.
The Shiites were making their way on foot to Hussein’s gold-domed shrine in Karbala, some 90 kilometers south of Baghdad, where authorities said more than 2 million pilgrims were expected to converge.
Ashoura attracts hundreds of thousands of Shiites to holy sites across Iraq.
Security forces have imposed tight security measures in and around Karbala, as well as other Shiite cities and Baghdad, sealing off areas where the Shiites, most of them dressed in black, passed through or stopped to rest.
Some Shiites in the processions ritually whipped their bodies with chains and knives in grief, drenching themselves in blood, which is part of Ashoura.
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