Four more Shi'ite pilgrims headed for Karbala for Arbaeen celebrations were killed by a roadside bomb in Baghdad Feb. 25—one day after a suicide bomber killed 48 pilgrims, detonating a vest filled with explosives at a rest stop in Iskandiriyah. US officials blamed the attack on al-Qaeda. Arbaeen marks the close of Ashura, the 40-day mourning period for Imam Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Mohammed. (AFP, ISNA, Feb. 25)

Earlier this Ashura period, worshipers were killed in internecine Shi'ite violence in Iraq's south.

This is the second year running that Ashura and Arbaeen have been marred by terror attacks on pilgrims.

See our last posts on Iraq and the sectarian cleansing.