Bombers Target Pilgrims on Ashura
Baghdad: Bombers killed 36 people in two attacks on Shiite worshippe is marking the climax of the religious ritual of Ashura near Baghdad yesterday and gunmen killed four pilgrims in an ambush in the capital.
The attacks on the final day of the week-long annual Ashura mourning rite, the highpoint of the Shiite religious calendar, came amid heightened tensions between the country's majority Shiites and once politically dominant minority Sunnis.
Fearing a possible strike by insurgents, Iraqi authorities had deployed 11,000 police and soldiers to the holy city of Karbala, focus of the commemoration that marks the death in battle of Imam Hussain there 1,300 years ago.
The fears were fuelled by the discovery of what Iraqi officials said was a plot by a Muslim cult to target senior Shiite clerics in Najaf south of Baghdad at the climax of Ashura this week.
Iraqi security forces backed by US tanks, helicopters and jet fighters fought a fierce day-long battle with the "Soldiers of Heaven" near the city on Sunday in which one US helicopter crashed. Iraqi officials said the cult's leader was also killed.
502 arrested
Iraqi Defence Ministry spokesman Mohammad Al Askari said yesterday the final toll from the battle was 263 killed. A total of 502 "Soldiers of Heaven" followers had been arrested, including 210 wounded.
This time, the bombers appeared to have focused on less well-protected targets in other Iraqi towns.
In the first blast, 13 people were killed, including three women and a teenage boy, and 39 wounded when a roadside bomb hit a procession of Shiites in the town of Khanaqin northeast of Baghdad, police said. Shortly afterwards, a suicide bomber blew himself up among worshippers outside a Shiite mosque in the town of Balad Ruz, about 80 km to the south of Khanakin, killing 23 people and wounding 57, police said.
Gunmen also attacked two minibuses carrying pilgrims returning from Najaf in Baghdad's Bayaa district, killing four and wounding nine, police said.
The battle with the Soldiers of Heaven added a new dimension to the conflict. Iraqi officials said the "ideologically perverted" group was led by a man claiming to be the Mehdi, a cult figure in Islam.
Reuters
Fearing a possible strike by insurgents, Iraqi authorities had deployed 11,000 police and soldiers to the holy city of Karbala, focus of the commemoration that marks the death in battle of Imam Hussain there 1,300 years ago.
The fears were fuelled by the discovery of what Iraqi officials said was a plot by a Muslim cult to target senior Shiite clerics in Najaf south of Baghdad at the climax of Ashura this week.
Iraqi security forces backed by US tanks, helicopters and jet fighters fought a fierce day-long battle with the "Soldiers of Heaven" near the city on Sunday in which one US helicopter crashed. Iraqi officials said the cult's leader was also killed.
502 arrested
Iraqi Defence Ministry spokesman Mohammad Al Askari said yesterday the final toll from the battle was 263 killed. A total of 502 "Soldiers of Heaven" followers had been arrested, including 210 wounded.
This time, the bombers appeared to have focused on less well-protected targets in other Iraqi towns.
In the first blast, 13 people were killed, including three women and a teenage boy, and 39 wounded when a roadside bomb hit a procession of Shiites in the town of Khanaqin northeast of Baghdad, police said. Shortly afterwards, a suicide bomber blew himself up among worshippers outside a Shiite mosque in the town of Balad Ruz, about 80 km to the south of Khanakin, killing 23 people and wounding 57, police said.
Gunmen also attacked two minibuses carrying pilgrims returning from Najaf in Baghdad's Bayaa district, killing four and wounding nine, police said.
The battle with the Soldiers of Heaven added a new dimension to the conflict. Iraqi officials said the "ideologically perverted" group was led by a man claiming to be the Mehdi, a cult figure in Islam.
Reuters
