Pilgrims among dozens killed in Iraq attacks
By insurgents to exploit Iraq's political vacuum and destabilize the country as U.S. troops prepare to head home.. Police said the suicide bombing that also wounded more than 90 people struck as pilgrims were about to cross a bridge leading to the shrine in the Kazimiyah neighborhood where a revered imam is buried.. Saif al-Azami, 30, told The Associated Press some of his Sunni friends who were serving food and water to the Shia pilgrims were among those killed and wounded.. Militants were able to strike even as security forces were on high alert in the capital, where Shia pilgrims from all over Iraq converged on a mosque in the northern Baghdad neighborhood to mark the anniversary of the death of Moussa al-Kadhim, the seventh imam.. A vehicle ban was in place across Kazimiyah, and 200,000 members of security forces were deployed along the way to the shrine.. The attack was near the bridge where 900 people died in 2005 in a stampede sparked by a rumor that a suicide bomber was among the more than 1 million people who had gathered at the shrine.
- AP