At least 50 people, including 45 in the holy Shia city of Karbala in central Iraq, have been killed and scores of others injured in a day of violence across the country.
On Thursday, two back-to-back car bomb attacks respectively hit the north and south of the city, AFP reported. The explosions also injured at least 150 others.
Shiite pilgrims march Thursday in Baghdad, Iraq, on their way to Karbala for Arbaeen.
( ASSOCIATED PRESS )
ASSOCIATED PRESS
BAGHDAD — A pair of bombs blasted through security checkpoints ringing the Iraqi holy city of Karbala Thursday and killed at least 50 people, many of whom were Shiite pilgrims headed to observe yearly religious rituals.
Authorities estimated as many as 175 people were injured in the afternoon blasts, at least one of which appeared to be caused by a car bomb.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks. But they bore the hallmark of al-Qaida and other Sunni-dominated extremist groups that frequently target Shiite pilgrimages in hopes of re-igniting sectarian violence that brought Iraq to the brink of civil war just a few years ago.
Ali Khamas, a pilgrim from the Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City in Baghdad, said he saw a car speeding toward one of the checkpoints, its driver refusing to stop despite warnings screamed by Iraqi soldiers.
"He sped up and blew up his car near the checkpoint," said Khamas, a 42-year-old truck driver. "After the explosion, people started to run in all directions, while wounded people on the ground were screaming for help. I saw several dead bodies on the ground."
Still, Khamas said, the pilgrims continued to head to Karbala: "It will not deter us from continuing our march to the holy shrine ... even if the explosions increase."
The religious rituals mark the end of an annual 40-day mourning period observing the seventh-century death of Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad. Imam Hussein is one of the most revered figures among Shiite Muslims and was killed in Karbala in a battle that sealed Islam's historic Sunni-Shiite split.
Iraqi security officials initially said both bombs in Thursday's attack were planted along the highway that pilgrims were using to walk to Karbala. A police official later said the blasts might have been the work of suicide bombers or explosives-packed cars.
Such confusion is common immediately after large-scale attacks. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.
The bombings were the latest in a three-day barrage of attacks across Iraq that have killed more than 100 people since Tuesday.
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Official: Iraq militia chief behind pilgrim blasts
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Enlarge By Karim Kadim, AP
Shiite pilgrims on their way to Karbala for Arbaeen march Saturday in Baghdad, Iraq. A top Iraqi security commander has announced the arrest of a government-backed Sunni Muslim militia leader on charges of being behind the deadly suicide bombings against Shiite pilgrims this week.
BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraqi police arrested the local leader of a government-backed Sunni Muslim militia for planning the deadly bombings on Shiite pilgrims this week, Iraqi officials said Saturday.
If the Awakening Council leader is found guilty of the charges, it would affirm widespread government doubts about integrating the Sunni fighters into the nation's security forces — despite their alliance with the U.S. against al-Qaeda. It could also signal that the militia's frustration about being sidelined by Iraq's Shiite-dominated government may have finally reached a boiling point.
The arrest was announced as anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr headed back to Iran, according to two senior aides, after a brief two-week visit breaking nearly four years of self-exile.
EARLIER: Bombs targeting Shiite pilgrims kill 51
The populist firebrand Shiite cleric, who leads a powerful political movement, left Iraq early Saturday, according to the two aides. One of the officials said al-Sadr was expected back soon.
Both senior aides spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.
Security forces were tipped off about the Awakening Council chief in Hillah just hours after the Thursday blasts that killed 56 outside the holy city of Karbala, said Maj. Gen. Numan Dakhil, commander of Iraq's SWAT teams. The blasts struck crowds of pilgrims who were headed to the shrines for rituals marking the 7th century death of the Imam Hussein, who is buried there.
Dakhil said the militia leader and an assistant were arrested early Friday in Hillah, about 60 miles south of Baghdad, which U.S. and Iraqi security officials believe has become a haven for insurgents. Both men are accused of links to the Islamic Army in Iraq, a nationalist insurgent group of mostly Sunnis, many former soldiers.
Also known as Sahwa or Sons of Iraq, the Awakening Councils are made up of Sunni fighters who sided with U.S. forces against al-Qaeda in a crucial turning point of the war. But many Shiite officials are deeply suspicious of their role during Iraq's darkest days of sectarian violence.
For their part, the Awakening Councils have been frustrated with the government for years, saying they risked their lives to battle al-Qaeda, only to be shut out of the nation's security forces and left at the mercy of vengeful extremists.
A broad plan to absorb the Awakening Councils into security forces or other government jobs, and to give them benefits, has been stalled by Iraqi leaders who say they don't have the money to hire the estimated 51,900 fighters.
Thursday's triple suicide bombings on the pilgrims outraged Shiite clerics who accused security forces of continually failing to outwit the insurgents and protect the Iraqi people. It also prompted a Sadrist lawmaker to renew offers to reassemble al-Sadr's feared militia that is alleged to have engaged in rampant revenge killings of Sunnis for years.
In his only public speech during his two weeks in Iraq, al-Sadr urged his followers to renounce sectarian violence even as he whipped up the crowd of about 20,000 into an anti-American frenzy.
Al-Sadr's surprise return to Iraq was part of his campaign to boost his credibility in the nation's political and religious circles after nearly four years in voluntary exile in Iran. His political wing holds 40 seats in parliament, and its support is steadily growing.
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UPDATE 1-Six killed in Iraq blast as Shi'ites hold rite24 Jan 2011
Source: reuters // Reuters
* Shi'ite rite a regular al Qaeda target
* Attacks pose challenge as U.S. forces prepare to leave (Updates death toll, adds byline)
By Muhanad Mohammed
KERBALA, Iraq, Jan 24 (Reuters) - A car bomb killed six people and wounded 12 in the holy Iraqi Shi'ite city of Kerbala on Monday as hundreds of thousands of pilgrims streamed in for a religious rite, an Iraqi army captain said.
The bomb exploded in a car park on the outskirts of the city where pilgrims heading into Kerbala for the annual Arbain event had parked their vehicles, said the officer, asking not to be identified.
"It's difficult for us to control every inch of the province. There are waves of pilgrims," the army captain said when asked how the bomb had gotten through a security cordon of 120,000 police and troops deployed to protect the pilgrims.
Other sources provided conflicting tolls and accounts.
Nusaif al-Khattab, deputy head of the Kerbala provincial council, said five people were wounded.
A hospital source, who asked not to be identified, said the blast killed two people and wounded 13, while a police source said one person was killed and three wounded. He said the explosion was caused by a defective gas cylinder, not a bomb.
Iraq has been rocked by a series of blasts in recent days ahead of the culmination of Arbain, a major Shi'ite rite that has been regularly targeted by Sunni Islamist groups like al Qaeda since the 2003 fall of Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein.
Car bombs in and around Baghdad on Sunday killed six people and wounded 29. More than 110 Shi'ite pilgrims, police recruits and police were killed in three days of car bomb and suicide bomb attacks in Kerbala and mainly Sunni areas north of Baghdad before that.
The attacks pose a challenge to Iraqi security forces and Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's newly appointed Shi'ite-led government as U.S. troops prepare to stage a full withdrawal this year.
Overall violence in Iraq has fallen sharply since the peak in 2006/07 of the sectarian carnage unleashed after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. But bombings and shootings carried out by Sunni Islamist insurgents, groups allied to Saddam's former Baath party or Shi'ite militia continue on a daily basis.
Arbain, which culminates on Tuesday, marks the end of a 40-day mourning period for Imam Hussein, a grandson of the Prophet Mohammad and a central figure of Shi'ite Islam. Imam Hussein was killed in a 7th Century battle and his followers believe he was buried in Kerbala.
The annual Arbain pilgrimage draws hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Shi'ite Muslims from Iraq, neighbouring Iran and other Shi'ite communities in the Muslim world. Sunni Islamists like al Qaeda view Shi'ites as apostates.
Shi'ite religious events were banned in Iraq under Saddam. (Additional reporting by Waleed Ibrahim and Ahmed Rasheed in Baghdad; Writing by Michael Christie)
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