By BUSHRA JUHI, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 8 minutes ago
BAGHDAD - Two roadside bombs went off Thursday in separate Baghdad locations, killing a Shiite pilgrim and a policeman and wounding 16 people, most of them Shiite pilgrims headed on foot to the holy city of Karbala for a major religious festival, police said.
The first bomb, in the southeastern district of Zafaraniyah, killed the policeman and wounded nine others — six pilgrims and three policemen, a police official said. The second, in the central Alwiya district, killed one pilgrim and wounded seven, all males in their late teens and early 20s, another police official said.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
The Shabaniyah festival, which climaxes over the weekend, marks the birth of Mohammed al-Mahdi, the 12th Shiite imam, who disappeared in the 9th century. Devout Shiites believe he will return to Earth to restore peace and harmony.
Shiite religious festivals have often been targeted by militants from al-Qaida in Iraq, the country's deadliest Sunni terror group.
Thousands of Shiite pilgrims have been killed since the ouster of Saddam Hussein's Sunni-led regime in 2003 when followers of Iraq's majority sect began to celebrate their religious holidays openly and in large numbers.
Shiite political parties are known to encourage huge turnouts for the festivals to display the sect's empowerment after years of marginalization by the minority Sunni Arabs.
The last deadly attack against Shiite pilgrims was last month, when three female suicide bombers struck Shiite pilgrims in nearly simultaneous bombings in Baghdad, killing at least 32 people and wounding more than 100.
The bombers were walking among pilgrims streaming in their annual march to the golden domed shrine of the eighth-century imam Moussa al-Kadhim in Kazimiyah.
On Thursday, Brig. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, the chief military spokesman for Baghdad, issued several regulations designed to defuse sectarian tensions during the journey to Karbala, which runs through Sunni areas just south of the capital, and to avoid a repeat of past incidents that cost pilgrims' lives or provoked Sunnis during Shiite occasions.
The order banned members of the Shiite-dominated security forces deployed along the route from plastering their vehicles with religious and political symbols — like images of Shiite saints or Shiite party posters — and from joining pilgrims in their religious chants. Security personnel, al-Moussawi said, must stick to the national anthem and fly the national flag from their vehicles.
Al-Moussawi, who announced the regulations on state television, also said pilgrims must not carry arms and those traveling on foot mustn't walk about after dark. He warned against rumors that could sow panic and against accepting food from strangers.
In Karbala, 50 miles south of Baghdad, police spokesman Rahman Meshawi said additional police and army forces arrived in the city to beef up security for the Shabaniyah, which is expected to attract hundreds of thousands of pilgrims from across Iraq.
He said the additional forces were seven battalions — three each from the defense and interior ministries and one made up of security forces from neighboring provinces. He gave no figures, but Iraqi police and army battalions are usually around 300 men each.
Last year's Shabaniyah was marred by deadly clashes between gunmen loyal to two rival Shiite groups, leaving scores killed and wounded.
In other incidents Thursday, three policemen were killed and six others wounded when a roadside bomb hit their patrol near Buhriz, a town about 35 miles north of Baghdad in the turbulent Diyala province, according to the provincial joint operations center.
Farther north, in the city of Mosul, gunmen shot dead an off-duty policeman and army soldier in separate incidents.
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Iraq heightens pilgrimage security as bombers strike
15 Aug 2008 10:16:00 GMT
Source: Reuters
* Iraqi authorities tighten security for Shi'ite pilgrimage
* Bomb strikes minibus carrying pilgrims
*
Suicide bombing kills 19 overnight
By Sami al-Jumaili
KERBALA, Aug 15 (Reuters) - A roadside bomb struck a minibus packed with pilgrims bound for the holy Shi'ite city of Kerbala on Friday even as Iraqi authorities deployed over 40,000 police and soldiers to avert new violence in the annual rite.
Police said one pilgrim was killed and nine were wounded in eastern Baghdad in the attack, which came as thousands make their way, some walking for days, to Kerbala to mark the birth of Imam al-Mehdi, a revered figure in Shi'ite Islam.
On Thursday evening 19 people were killed and 75 wounded when a female suicide bomber detonated an explosive vest among pilgrims travelling toward the city.
Iraqi security forces, backed by helicopters and hundreds of snipers perched on rooftops, say they will search pilgrims and use bomb-sniffing dogs to ferret out explosives as part of an effort to avoid the bloodshed that continues to mar such religious events even as overall violence in Iraq drops sharply.
"We have set up scores of watch towers, and have cameras placed in open areas, crossroads and major entrances," said Kerbala police chief Major-General Raad Shakir.
A string of bomb attacks in Kerbala during a pilgrimage in 2004 killed 171 people and wounded scores in one of the worst attacks heralding the outbreak of Iraq's sectarian conflict.
Shakir said around 2,000 female police officers would be searching women making the annual Sha'abaniya pilgrimage.
Suicide bombings by women have become far more common this year in Iraq, where U.S. forces blame Sunni al Qaeda militants for deploying female bombers to evade security searches. Three female suicide bombers struck the last big Shi'ite pilgrimage in Baghdad last month, killing nearly 30 worshippers.
In Kerbala, police in fatigues and red berets checked ID cards and patted down faithful entering the golden-domed Imam Hussein mosque, strung with brightly coloured neon lights.
Outside the mosque, throngs of pilgrims, some of them women barely visible under their black abayas, sat on blankets.
Authorities have banned people from carrying weapons and chanting sectarian slogans. On the roads to Kerbala, police watch over pilgrims carrying belongings on their backs in the scorching summer heat.
BRACING FOR THE WORST
Despite the precautions, Kerbala is bracing for the worst. Local health director Alaa Hammoudi said that 40 medic units were standing by, and that extra hospital beds were made ready.
Near the mosque, makeshift clinics were set up in tents and trailers. Some pilgrims donated blood.
Shi'ites believed that Mehdi, the 12th imam, disappeared in the ninth century but never died. They believe his return will signal the advent of peace and justice on earth.
The pilgrimage is one of several annual events that have become shows of force for Iraq's Shi'ite majority since the fall of Sunni Arab leader Saddam Hussein, who restricted Shi'ite religious practice. Sunni Arab militants often strike them.
Last year's pilgrimage was marred by gunbattles in Kerbala between Shi'ite factions, which led to a ceasefire by anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr that U.S. forces say is one of the factors contributing to Iraq's fall in violence.
A spokesman for the U.S. military said that U.S. forces would support Iraqi troops if needed.
The United States has been seeking to highlight its secondary role in such security operations as U.S. and Iraqi officials negotiate an agreement to outline the U.S. presence in Iraq after a U.N. mandate expires at the end of the year.
Iraq's Shi'ite-led government is hoping that U.S. forces will halt patrols of Iraqi cities and towns by the middle of 2009, and withdraw combat troops by 2010 or 2011.
So far, President George W. Bush has resisted a firm timetable, but has spoken of a "time horizon" and "aspirational goals" governing a gradual drawdown of U.S. troops in Iraq.
The U.S. military announced on Friday the death of a marine killed by small arms fire in Western Iraq, the 15th U.S. service member to die in Iraq this month. Just 13 died in all of July, the least deadly month since the war began.
(Additional reporting by Mohammed Ameen in Kerbala and Aws Qusay in Baghdad; writing by Missy Ryan; Editing by Samia Nakhoul)
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A member of the Iraqi National Police gestures to others at the scene of a blast, after a car bomb struck Shiite pilgrims boarding minibuses in the mainly Shiite district of Shaab in Baghdad, Iraq, Saturday, Aug. 16, 2008, killing six and wounding 11 according to police and medical officials. The latest in a series of bombings targeting Shiites heading to Karbala for a major religious festival that culminates this weekend, the explosives laden car blew up around 9 a.m. near minibuses assembled to pick up the pilgrims.
(AP Photo/Karim Kadim)
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