Carnage in Iraq as suicide bombers target pilgrims

Published on Monday 28 July 2008 22:13

A SHADOW of Iraq's recent violent past fell across the country yesterday, as two suicide bombings killed at least 50 people and left many more wounded.

Three female suicide bombers killed 28 people and wounded 92 when they blew themselves up among Shiites walking through the streets of Baghdad on a religious pilgrimage.

In the northern oil city of Kirkuk, a suicide bomber killed 22 people and wounded 150 at a protest against a disputed local elections law. The bomber may also have been a woman.

The attacks mark one of the bloodiest days in Iraq in months and underscored the fragility of recent security gains in the country, where violence is at its lowest level since early 2004.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the Baghdad blasts, but Sunni Islamist al-Qaeda often targets Shiite pilgrims. It considers Shiism – Iraq's majority Muslim denomination – heretical.

At least one million people are expected to take part in the pilgrimage in the Iraqi capital, which peaks today and marks the death of one of Shiite Islam's 12 imams, one of the most important events in the Shiite religious calendar.

"These blasts that happened today will increase our determination to finalise this ceremony… and defeat terrorism," said Taher Abd-Noor, a pilgrim.

Al-Qaeda has increasingly used women to carry out suicide attacks, as they can often evade the more stringent security checks applied to men. Women have carried out 20 suicide attacks in Iraq this year, the US military has said. The apparently co-ordinated blasts in Baghdad shattered a period of relative calm in the city and took place despite tight security for the pilgrimage to the Kadhamiya shrine.

US commanders caution that, despite better security, suicide bombers wearing vests packed with explosives will still periodically slip into crowded places.

In Kirkuk, Kurdish television footage showed thousands of people demonstrating against Iraq's provincial elections law when an explosion prompted a rush for cover. A security official said witnesses saw a woman carry out the attack. Tensions have been high due to the provincial polls expected to be held late this year or early 2009.

Mosques called for people to give blood. Television footage showed Kirkuk's main hospital packed with wounded, some lying on a floor slick with blood because of a lack of beds.

Demonstrators seeking refuge after the blast ran to an office of Kirkuk's ethnic Turkmen minority, but were fired upon by guards, who thought they were under attack, said a police chief.

Kurds in the ethnically mixed city say it should belong to the largely autonomous Kurdistan region in northern Iraq, but Arabs and ethnic Turkmen want it to stay under central government authority.

Last week, Jalal Talabani, Iraq's president, rejected the provincial election law as unconstitutional after Kurdish lawmakers boycotted the parliament session that passed it.