Baghdad attacks kill 39

IRAQ: A suicide bomber wearing an explosives-filled belt targeted Shiite pilgrims and murdered 28 in Baghdad Wednesday while 11 more were killed in bomb attacks, security officials told AFP.

The suicide attack occurred in Adhamiyah, a Sunni district across the Tigris river from Kadhimiyah, an area named after Musa Kadhim, the seventh of 12 revered imams in Shiite Islam, whom the pilgrims are honouring.

An interior ministry official said 28 were killed and 81 wounded. Many of the victims were passing through Adhamiyah en route to the imam’s mausoleum. Eleven more pilgrims were killed and 63 injured by bombs in three other sections of Baghdad, police said.

Tens of thousands of Shiite worshippers streamed into the Iraqi capital earlier in the day amid heavy security for the pilgrimage, a day after six of them were killed in mortar and bomb attacks as they travelled to the mausoleum.

Hundreds of tents have been erected to feed people as they pour into the city for the event, which reaches a climax on Wednesday night and early Thursday.

The mausoleum has previously been targeted by bombers.

Traffic was banned on Tuesday on several bridges spanning the Tigris River, increasing already bad congestion in the capital, where traffic control is already complicated by hundreds of security checkpoints.

Major General Qassim Atta, a Baghdad security forces spokesman, told AFP special safety measures, including road closures, were in place to protect worshippers. “We continue to organise transport for pilgrims and air surveillance for their benefit,” he said.

Baghdad, AFP