IRAQ:A roadside bomb struck a minibus packed with pilgrims bound for Iraq's holy Shia city of Kerbala yesterday, even as 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 made their way to Kerbala, some walking for days, to mark the birth of Imam al-Mehdi, a revered figure in Shia Islam.
Near the town of Iskandariya, bloody mattresses and a heap of shoes lay by the roadside where 19 people were killed and 75 wounded overnight by a female suicide bomber, who detonated an explosive vest among pilgrims who had stopped for their evening meal.
Pilgrims had piled nearby the black abayas - Islamic overgarments - belonging to women who were slain. Iraqi security forces, backed by helicopters and hundreds of snipers perched on rooftops, say they will search pilgrims and use bomb-sniffing dogs to detect 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 watchtowers and have cameras placed in open areas, crossroads and major entrances," said Kerbala police chief, Maj-Gen Raad Shakir.
The pilgrimage is one of several annual events that have become shows of force for Iraq's Shia majority since the fall of Sunni leader Saddam Hussein, who restricted Shia religious practice. Sunni Arab militants often strike them.
Suicide attacks in Baghdad and Kerbala during a 2004 pilgrimage killed 171 people. In the war's deadliest incident, more than 1,000 pilgrims were killed in 2005 during a stampede triggered by a rumour of a bomber in their midst.
During the last big Shia pilgrimage in Baghdad last month, three female suicide bombers killed nearly 30 worshippers.
- (Reuters)