Scores feared dead in Iraq blasts
Scores of people were feared killed after several explosions hit major Shiite shrines in the Iraqi city of Karbala and in Baghdad today where thousands of pilgrims were gathered to for a religious festival.
In Karbala, five blasts went off almost simultaneously near two major Shiite shrines, throwing bodies in all directions and sending crowds of pilgrims into a panic in the city 55 miles south of Baghdad.
An Associated Press reporter saw 10 bodies loaded on to a cart and taken away, as well as many injured.
In Baghdad, three explosions targeted the Kazimiya shrine, killing and injuring scores of people, eye witnesses said.
Shiites were gathered at the shrines to mark Ashoura, a mourning festival commemorating of the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, a top Shiite saint and the grandson of the prophet Muhammad.
Police sealed off the areas while panicked people fled screaming and ambulances raced to the scenes of the explosions. Dozens of armed men in civilian clothes tried to maintain order.
The Ashoura festival, which marks the 7th century killing of Imam Hussein, is the most important religious period in Shiite Islam and draws hundreds of thousands of pilgrims from Iraq, Iran, Pakistan and other Shiite communities to the Iraqi shrines.
Imam Hussein, a grandson of the prophet Muhammad, is buried in Karbala and the blasts were near the golden-domed shrine which contains his tomb. The Kazimiya shrine in northern Baghdad contains the tombs of two other Shiite saints, Imam Mousa Kazem and his grandson Imam Muhammad al-Jawad.
