Bombings and shootings targeting Shi'ite Muslim pilgrims in Baghdad and police across
Iraq killed at least 53 people on Wednesday in apparently coordinated attacks during
a major religious festival.
The death toll was expected to rise in the attacks,
which included car bombs that tore into Shiite religious processions at four different
locations across Baghdad. It was the third attack in the capital this week targeting
the annual pilgrimage commemorating the 8th century death of a revered imam. Police
officers said the first bomb struck pilgrims in a procession at around 5 a.m. in the
northern Baghdad neighborhood of Taji. Within hours, three more explosions hit other
processions in different parts of the Iraqi capital.
Meanwhile, in the city
of Hillah, 95 kilometers south of Baghdad, two car bombs exploded minutes apart at
dawn in the center of town. In the nearby city of Karbala, a parked car exploded near
another group of Shiite pilgrims. And north of Baghdad, the town of Balad was hit
by simultaneous car bombs.
The attacks came as pilgrims began to make their
way to Baghdad for commemorations marking the 8th century death of Moussa al-Kadhim,
an important figure in Shiite history, who is said to be buried in a shrine there.
The attacks were launched against the backdrop of a prolonged sectarian-based political
crisis between Shiite and Sunni Muslims that some fear is opening the door to renewed
violence.