Bombs kill 30 as Iraqi Shi'ites mark Ashura

BAGHDAD - Insurgents targeted Shi'ite Muslims in a series of suicide strikes and bombings across Baghdad, killing 30 people and wounding around 130 on the holiest day of the Shi'ite religious calendar.

Other attacks on Iraqi security forces across the country, part of the daily drumbeat of Iraq's insurgency, took the death toll nationwide to at least 40 in one of the most violent days the country has seen since its historic Jan. 30 election.

Iraq's security forces had been braced for attacks in the southern holy city of Kerbala, where more than 170 pilgrims were killed during the Shi'ite ritual of Ashura last year.

But guerrillas targeted the capital, which has borne the brunt of violence since last month's elections.

In the worst sectarian attack, a man wearing a vest laden with explosives boarded a bus close to a Shi'ite mosque in the Khadamiya neighbourhood and blew himself up, according to witnesses and the US military.

Police said 17 people were killed and 41 wounded.

A Reuters photographer at the scene said bodies were lying in the road, blown apart and scorched. The orange bus was torn almost in half and reduced to a burnt wreck.

In a separate attack in the same area, a suicide bomber blew himself up after an exchange of fire with security forces. One US soldier was killed.

Earlier, a suicide bomber on a moped attacked a group of people at the funeral of a woman killed in a bombing on Friday. Four mourners were killed and 39 wounded, hospital officials said. In total 129 were wounded in Baghdad, police said.

While the capital was rocked by the blasts, Shi'ites in Kerbala were able to observe Ashura in relative peace.

Officials said several hundred thousand pilgrims marched through the city's streets, chanting, beating their breasts and crying "Hussein" in honour of Imam Hussein, a grandson of the Prophet Mohammad, who died in battle in 680 A.D.

Some cut themselves with knives in a symbolic act of atonement for Hussein's death.

Traffic was banned around the city to limit the threat of car bombs, and local residents helped set up checkpoints.

 

SUNNI PARTY CONDEMNS ATTACKS

This year's Ashura came days after results from Iraq's Jan. 30 election confirmed Shi'ites would dominate the new national parliament at the expense of Sunni Arabs who held sway under Saddam Hussein and before.

Shi'ites have been repeatedly attacked by guerrillas who the government says are trying to spark a sectarian war. Shi'ite religious leaders have urged restraint from their followers and said they had expected some attacks on Ashura.

One of Iraq's main Sunni parties, the Iraqi Islamic Party, condemned the attacks against what it described as "our innocent Shi'ite brothers".

"We doubt that those who did this belong to Islam," the party said in a statement. "The response to these crimes should be more unity between the people of the nation, regardless of their religion or sect."

North of Baghdad, a suicide car bomber killed six Iraqi soldiers and a civilian at an army base in the city of Baquba, and a roadside bomb killed another Iraqi soldier in Samarra.

There were other attacks in Samarra and the northern city of Kirkuk overnight. Among the victims was a prominent Kurdish Islamic figure, Sheikh Mohammed Ristem Abdul-Rahman, who died with his wife when gunmen attacked their car.

A delegation of US senators visited Baghdad on Saturday and declared themselves encouraged by the elections but said withdrawing US troops too early would be a disaster.

"The one thing I have learned from this trip is we are a long way from being able to leave," Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, told a news conference.

"To leave too soon would be devastating. To stay too long would be unnecessary. The Iraqi people have their fate in their hands and we are central partners in that process and I ask the American people to have patience."

US forces have been in Iraq for almost two years -- since the March 2003 invasion to overthrow Saddam Hussein.

The United States is hoping a legitimate Iraqi government can provide for its own security and allow Washington to withdraw its forces, currently numbering some 150,000.

Iraq's new national assembly should be inaugurated soon. Talks have been going on for two weeks over who will take the top government positions, with Kurds expected to get the presidency and the main Shi'ite bloc the prime minister's post.

- REUTERS