IRAQ: Six killed and 38 wounded as two mortar bombs target Shi'ite pilgrims in Baghdad

Record ID: 353648

  • Title: IRAQ: Six killed and 38 wounded as two mortar bombs target Shi'ite pilgrims in Baghdad
  • Date: 12th June 2012
  • Summary: BAGHDAD, IRAQ (JUNE 11, 2012) (REUTERS) MARKET WHERE BLAST TOOK PLACE WOMAN WALKING NEAR BLAST SCENE STREET STALL HIT BY BOMB STREET STALL STAINED BY BLOOD DAMAGE CAUSED BY BOMB MORE OF DAMAGE CAUSED BY BLAST MAN COLLECTING BOXES NEAR SHOP BLOOD ON THE GROUND SIGN READING "AL-IMAMMEEN PHARMACY" SCATTERED GLASS TWO MEN STANDING AT SCENE (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) WIT
  • Embargoed: 27th June 2012 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Iraq
  • Country: Iraq
  • Topics: Crime,Politics,Religion,Religion
  • Reuters ID: LVAA8SWZA57ULFQOYP6I5GLNIS92
  • Story Text: Two mortar bombs struck a square filled with Shi'ite Muslim pilgrims in Iraq's capital Baghdad on Sunday (June 10), killing at least six people and wounding 38, police and hospital sources said.
    Although overall violence in Iraq has dropped, Sunni Islamist insurgents with links to al Qaeda are still capable of lethal attacks and hit Shi'ite targets to stir up the kind of sectarian pressure that almost led to civil war in 2006-2007.
    Sectarian tensions have been high in Iraq since the withdrawal of U.S. forces in December, with the country's main Shi'ite, Sunni and Kurdish blocs locked in a political crisis that threatens to wreck a power-sharing deal.
    Sunday's attack occurred in Quraish Square in Baghdad's northwestern Kadhimiya district, where pilgrims were gathering ahead of a religious festival to mark the anniversary of the death of mediaeval Shi'ite imam Moussa al-Kadhim.
    "How did it (the bomb) enter here? Wheelbarrows are not allowed to enter. Did it fall from the sky? There are many pilgrims. They can be scared by bombs or terrorism. They came to visit Moussa Bin Jaafar. It (bombs) have become an ordinary thing. Death is an ordinary thing for us and bombs are ordinary things," said witness Qahtan.
    Police sources said the death toll could rise.
    During the same religious pilgrimage in 2005, about 1,000 people were killed when rumours of a bombing on the Bridge of the Imams - which leads to the golden-domed shrine - triggered a stampede that clogged the river below with bodies.
    An Interior Ministry source said security forces had been put on high alert and that a tight security belt was in place around Kadhimiya in a bid to prevent further attacks on pilgrims walking towards the Imam Kadhim shrine.
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