BAGHDAD – Two car bombs exploded near the holy Shia city of Kerbala in southern Iraq yesterday, killing 20 mainly Shia pilgrims and wounding 54, an Iraqi official said.
In a separate incident in the capital, Baghdad, a suicide bomber killed at least four people in an attack on the Saudi-owned al-Arabiya news channel, security officials said.
The car bombs targeted Shia pilgrims visiting Kerbala, 80km (50 miles) southwest of Baghdad, before the anniversary of Imam Mohammed al-Mehdi’s birthday for which several hundred thousand people are expected this week.
The blasts took place on the road between Kerbala and the holy Shia city of Najaf, Mohammed al-Moussawi, head of the Kerbala provincial council, said. A police source said 30 people were killed or wounded by one of the car bombs.
The birthday is one of several annual pilgrimages that have evolved into shows of strength for Iraq’s majority Shia Muslim community since the fall of Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein, who curbed such rites.
Earlier this month determined Shia pilgrims defied suicide and roadside bombs to participate in an annual rite at the Imam Moussa al-Kadhim shrine in Baghdad.
Attacks killed more than 40 pilgrims and wounded hundreds of others despite the presence of 200,000 troops and police on the streets of the capital.
In Baghdad a suicide bomber blew up a mini-van he was driving close to the entrance of al-Arabiya’s office in the Harithiya district, killing a cleaner and three guards, city security spokesman Maj Gen Qassim al-Moussawi said. Ten people were wounded.
Dubai-based al-Arabiya TV also reported four people were killed. An interior ministry source put the death toll higher at six and said about 20 others were wounded.
Former deputy prime minister Salam al-Zobai, a member of the cross-sectarian Iraqiya bloc in parliament, was among the wounded along with five of his security guards, his spokesman said. Mr Zobai’s house was near the blast.
The attack occurred a few weeks after Iraqi security forces warned that a number of media including foreign outlets such as al-Arabiya could be targeted by the Sunni al-Qaeda insurgency.
Maj Gen Jihad al-Jabiri, head of the ministry’s ordnance department, told al-Arabiya TV that the car had been packed with 128kg (282lbs) of ammonium nitrate. The blast left a crater 3.5m (11½ft) wide and 1.2m deep, he said. – (Reuters)