At least 24 Iraqis were killed in ambushes, car bombs and fire fights on Sunday as Shi’ite Muslims headed to the shrine city of Karbala for Ashura, one of their most sacred ceremonies.
A car bomb ripped through Baghdad’s Sadr City, the impoverished Shi’ite bastion of radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, killing eight people and wounding 18, a security source said.
“A car bomb exploded around midday [local time] in Sadr City,” the source said.
The latest bloodletting comes as Iraqi and United States authorities gear for a broad offensive against insurgent and militia groups engaged in a bitter sectarian war centred on Baghdad.
A new security plan foresees the deployment of more than 50Â 000 Iraqi police and soldiers and 35Â 000 US troops in the violence-infested capital, where more than 16Â 800 civilians were killed last year, according to the United Nations.
In another Baghdad attack, an advisor to Industry Minister Fawzi Hariri was killed along with his daughter, driver and bodyguard in an ambush, a security source said.
Gunmen raked the convoy of Adel Abdel Mohsen with automatic weapons fire in Yarmuk, western Baghdad, killing him and his daughter Acile, an engineer at the ministry, as well as their driver and bodyguard.
North of the central shrine city of Najaf, three Iraqi soldiers died and four police officers were wounded in a dawn battle that pitted Iraqi and US forces against insurgents, defence and security sources said.
Nine other Iraqis died Sunday, mostly from bombs in or around Baghdad and in the disputed northern oil city of Kirkuk.
South of the Iraqi capital, security has been beefed up along the 110km of highway from Baghdad to Karbala that runs through the Sunni “triangle of death”, where Shi’ites are often attacked.
The shrine city of Karbala was on high alert as pilgrims arrived for Ashura, a commemoration of the seventh-century slaying of Prophet Muhammad’s grandson Imam Hussein on the orders of Sunni caliph Yazid.
Ceremonies culminate on Tuesday, and about 10Â 000 Iraqi police and soldiers from the area were to protect Shi’ite pilgrims from attacks that have marred the event in recent years.
“Three security perimeters have been put in place around the city,” Karbala governor Akhil al-Khazali said Saturday.
In Washington, meanwhile, tens of thousands of protestors told lawmakers to cut off funds for US President George Bush’s new Iraq strategy, which would post more than 80Â 000 US and Iraqi troops in Baghdad to regain control of the war-torn capital from insurgents and militiamen engaged in bitter sectarian conflict.
Vietnam War protest icon Jane Fonda was among those who urged Congress to refuse additional funding for the Iraq war.
“I haven’t spoken at an anti-war rally for 34 years,” said Fonda, whose visit to Hanoi in 1972 outraged many compatriots and damaged her career as an actress.
“But silence is no longer an option,” she told a cheering crowd.
The demonstration came ahead of an expected Senate vote on a non-binding resolution condemning Bush’s new strategy.
Protestors said they would demand a binding resolution to turn off the cash tap and force Bush to withdraw US soldiers from Iraq.
The White House remained defiant however, with spokesperson Gordon Johndroe saying that Bush “understands that Americans want to see a conclusion to the war in Iraq and the new strategy is designed to do just that”. — AFP