Thousands of Iraqi Shi’ites flocked to holy sites on Tuesday to observe a religious rite amid tight security days after a bomber killed 35.
A suicide attack near a Shi’ite shrine killed at least 36 people on Monday in the central Iraqi city of Karbala, a health official said. The attack came as United States Vice-President Dick Cheney visited Baghdad on a surprise trip and met several US and Iraqi leaders to discuss the recent improvement in security across the country.
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/ 25 January 2008
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki declared ”final war” on al-Qaeda on Friday after dozens of people including a police chief were killed in bomb attacks blamed on the jihadists in Mosul city. Iraqi forces were moving towards Mosul, 370km north of Baghdad, for a major assault that would become a ”decisive battle”, Maliki told a gathering in the central shrine city of Karbala.
Local authorities began evacuating hundreds of thousands of pilgrims from the Iraqi city of Karbala on Tuesday as a battle raged between Iraqi security forces and gunmen near two of Shi’ite Islam’s holiest shrines. A senior security source in Baghdad said 25 people had been killed, mostly police officers.
Nine people were killed, including several civilians, in clashes between United States soldiers and militia fighters in Iraq’s holy Shi’ite city of Karbala on Friday. The clashes broke out at about dawn when US soldiers entered Kerbala, 110km south-west of Baghdad, and tried to arrest several militiamen from the Mehdi Army.
A suicide car bomber detonated his payload on a crowded street near a revered Shi’ite shrine in the Iraqi city of Karbala on Saturday, killing at least 58 people and wounding nearly 170 others. ”Many of the wounded are women and children,” said a spokesperson for the Karbala health department.
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/ 19 September 2005
Two suicide car bombers killed 10 people when they struck checkpoints south of Baghdad on Monday on a road used by thousands of Iraqi Shi’ite pilgrims making their way by foot to the holy city of Karbala. The bombers struck separate road checkpoints halfway between Baghdad and Karbala, a defence ministry official said.
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/ 19 September 2005
Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Shi’ite pilgrims descended on the holy city of Karbala on Monday amid tight security following a spate of bomb attacks against the country’s majority population. Shi’ite Muslims are commemorating the birth of Imam Mehdi, their 12th and last imam who disappeared more than 11 centuries ago.
The United States military on Wednesday accused fighters loyal to a rebel cleric of firing on US forces from one of Shia Islam’s holiest shrines. Seven militiamen were killed in fighting in the center of Karbala. Also, a group linked to al-Qaeda has claimed responsibility for Monday’s car-bomb assassination of the Iraqi governing council president.
The United States-led coalition in Iraq was on Friday threatened with suicide attacks as leading Shiite and Sunni clerics warned troops against assaulting cities where armed rebels are holding out. ”We will be human time-bombs which would explode in their faces,” he said at Friday prayers in Kufa.