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 [2], ISNA [3], Feb. 25)
Earlier this Ashura period, worshipers were killed in internecine Shi'ite violence [4] in Iraq's south.
This is the second year running [5] that Ashura and Arbaeen [6] have been marred by terror attacks on pilgrims.
See our last posts on Iraq [7] and the sectarian cleansing [4].
