Monday, February 25, 2008
MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS
BAGHDAD — At least 40 Shiite pilgrims were killed and 60 injured in a suicide bombing south of Baghdad on Sunday in what was once known as the Sunni triangle of death.
The bombing in Iskandariyah came as hundreds of thousands of Shiites took to the streets to walk the 50 miles to the holy city of Karbala for Arbaeen. The ceremony on Thursday commemorates the anniversary of the 40th day following the martyrdom of Hussein, the grandson of the prophet Mohammed, a venerated figure in Shiite Islam.
As pilgrims stopped for water and food at a tent set up to serve them along their journey, a suicide bomber walked into the crowd and detonated, killing and wounding many of the pilgrims, said Muthanna Ahmed, spokesman for the police in Babil province. He expected the death toll to rise.
Attacks on Shiite pilgrims have become commonplace in the nearly five years of the Iraq war. Pilgrims walking to holy Shiite cities in the south are often met with sniper fire, bombings and grenades. But the walking did not stop. Young and old continued the trek Sunday, and millions of pilgrims were expected in Karbala by Thursday.
In south Baghdad, three more pilgrims were killed when grenades were thrown into a crowd.
Meanwhile, in the north along the border with Turkey, a battle continued a third day between the Kurdistan Worker’s Party, or PKK, and the Turkish military, which crossed into Iraq last week to fight the militant organization in the rugged Qandeel Mountains.
The PKK, considered a terrorist group by the United States, is battling for an independent Kurdistan in southeast Turkey. Turkey has taken aim against the group’s sanctuaries in northern Iraq; Sunday was the fourth day of shelling and artillery fire in the area.