A suicide bomber detonated a vest packed with metal ball bearings in a refreshment tent full of Iraqi pilgrims heading to a Shi’ite festival on Sunday, killing 40 people and wounding 60, police said.
The United States military said it was trying to confirm reports that 60 people had been killed and 100 wounded in the bombing in the town of Iskandariya, 40km south of Baghdad. Women and children were among the victims, officials said.
The attack was one of the deadliest in Iraq this year and happened despite a major tightening of security for the annual Arbain festival in the southern holy city of Kerbala.
Most of the casualties were hit by the ball bearings, said a doctor at a hospital in the city of Hilla, where many of the wounded were taken. A wounded woman there said the attack happened in a tent where pilgrims were offered refreshments.
”When we reached the area, people invited us into a tent to take some rest and have some food. When we entered, there was a huge ball of fire and we saw people lying on the ground,” said Um Amr, who was being treated for multiple wounds.
Police and the US military said the bomber struck hours after militants killed three pilgrims and wounded 36 others in an attack in southern Baghdad.
Captain Muthanna al-Mamouri, spokesperson for police in Hilla, 100km south of the capital, said 40 people were killed and 60 wounded in the Iskandariya attack.
The US military said in a statement the attack took place on a two-lane highway near a residential area where more than 40 000 pilgrims had passed through earlier in the day.
Tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers and police have been deployed for the Arbain festival after suspected Sunni Arab insurgents killed 149 pilgrims on their way to Kerbala for the event last year, one of the worst spasms of violence since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
The pilgrims are particularly vulnerable to attack because many prefer to walk to Kerbala, 110km south of Baghdad. They believe the effort will bring them greater spiritual reward.
Millions of Shi’ite pilgrims are expected in Kerbala for Arbain this week, which commemorates the end of the 40-day mourning period following Ashura, a religious ritual that marks the death of the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson in 680. It is one of Shi’ite Islam’s holiest events.
Vehicle ban
In the Baghdad attack, the pilgrims were hit by a roadside bomb and then fired on by gunmen on a road used by pilgrims walking to Kerbala, police said.
The US military gave a different account, saying gunmen had lobbed hand grenades at the pilgrims in Baghdad, killing one and wounding 17.
It said US and Iraqi forces would increase patrols and checkpoints, restricting vehicle access through key routes to Kerbala from southern Baghdad.
Kerbala’s police chief, Major General Raad Shakir, said last week that 40 000 police and soldiers had been deployed and Iraqi tanks were being used to protect the city for the first time.
All public transport, including bicycles, has been banned within a 25km radius of the city and 600 female security staff have been assigned to search women, police said.
Militants have used horses and carts, bicycles and motorcycles in bomb attacks in the past. There has also been a spate of suicide bombings carried out by women in recent months.
In previous years, militants have killed scores of pilgrims in suicide bombings and other attacks. Sunni Islamist al-Qaeda views Shi’ites, a majority in Iraq but a minority in the Muslim world, as heretics. — Reuters