A suicide bomber has infiltrated a crowd of Shia pilgrims and blown himself up, killing at least 35 people and wounding at least 79 at a Shia shrine in Baghdad, according to Iraqi officials said.
The bomber struck a checkpoint yesterday outside the Imam Moussa al-Kadhim shrine in Kadhimiya, a mainly Shia area of Baghdad, as Shias prepared for the Ashura holiday this week to mourn the death of Hussein, the grandson of the prophet Muhammad.
Many of the casualties were pilgrims from Iran, security spokesman Maj Gen Qassim Moussawi said, underscoring the religious ties between the two majority Shia countries.
Maj Gen Moussawi had earlier said the bomber was a woman but later said an investigation concluded it was a man. He said 35 people were killed and 79 wounded. Other Iraqi security sources gave slightly higher casualty figures.
"There were bodies everywhere, some of them missing legs and arms. This is a disaster," said eyewitness Said Qassim, who was distributing food to pilgrims nearby at the time of the blast. "I can't understand how . . . no one can get in here without going through seven checkpoints."
A Shia cleric called on Iraqi security forces to be "more awake" and for the planners of the bombing to be punished.
In a statement from his office in the holy Shia city of Najaf, Mohammed Taqi al-Mudarisi said: "The Iraqi people will not bow down to such crimes. We'll teach those people who did this unforgettable lessons."
Iraqi vice president Adel Abdul Mahdi blamed al-Qaeda-linked groups in a statement, calling them "terrorist gangs".
Hundreds of thousands of Shias will visit the holy city of Kerbala, 80 km southwest of Baghdad this week to mourn the death of Hussein in a 7th century battle, a day of passionate observance in the Shia calendar.
Sunni militants have frequently targeted Shia religious pilgrimages, which have become massive events since the fall of Saddam Hussein, who suppressed them.
In 2004, at the first Ashura pilgrimage after Saddam's fall, Sunni militants killed more than 160 pilgrims in co-ordinated strikes on Kadhimiya and Kerbala, an early portent of the sectarian fighting that would ravage Iraq in the next few years. Kerbala police chief Ali al-Ghurairi said 22,000 security agents had been deployed in the city to prevent that carnage being repeated.
Despite the violence, pilgrimages continue to attract hundreds of thousands of worshippers, including many from Iran.
US forces in Iraq came under an Iraqi mandate on January 1st under a pact that requires them to withdraw by the end of 2011. They are slowly disengaging from day- to-day patrols and are due to pull combat troops out of towns by mid-2009.
US forces yesterday put the Iraqi government in charge of mainly Sunni Arab tribal guards in ethnically and religiously mixed northern Diyala province, one of the most violent areas in the country. - (Reuters)