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At least 18 hurt by bomb targeting Shiite pilgrims in Baghdad
Iraqi authorities tightened security in the Iraqi capital as tens of thousands of Shiite pilgrims flocked to the shrine. In the past, Shiites attending such religious events have often been targeted by insurgents.
Police checkpoints were set up and many roads were closed in a bid to avoid violence. The government also banned motorcycles and wheeled carts until Sunday. Crowds are expected to peak today and Saturday.
At the same event in 2005, nearly 1,000 Shiite pilgrims, most of them women and children, died in a stampede during a religious procession on a bridge near the shrine. Thousands of the pilgrims, who panicked when they heard unfounded rumors of a suicide bomber, crushed one another or plunged into the Tigris River.
On Wednesday a suicide bomber killed six people, including an Iraqi policeman, in an attack on security forces in a former insurgent stronghold in Iraq's western Anbar province, police said. A Baghdad bombing killed five other people.
The attacks highlighted the security challenges still facing Iraq despite a sharp drop in violence, and the withdrawal of US combat troops from Iraqi cities at the end of last month. The pullout signals the growing confidence of Iraqi forces to handle security on their own, though tension among the country's factions remains a threat to stability.
Wednesday's attack in the western city of Ramadi was carried out by a suicide bomber driving a minibus who struck a checkpoint of Iraqi soldiers and police, killing a policeman and five civilians, said a local police officer. Earlier reports said six policemen were among the dead.
The attack injured 19 others, including five police, said the officer in Ramadi, which is located some 70 miles (115 kilometers) west of Baghdad. The officer spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.
Anbar used to be a stronghold of the Sunni insurgency but has been relatively quiet in recent months, partly because Sunni tribal leaders joined up with US-led forces to fight extremists.
On Wednesday evening, a bomb in Baghdad's Sadr City district killed five people and injured another 23, all of them men, a police officer and a hospital official said on condition of anonymity. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
The bomb was hidden in a plastic bag and exploded close to a big tent that was being used for the funeral service of the wife of a Shiite tribal leader, the officials said. Only men were in the tent, while female mourners were in a nearby house.
Abbas Hussein, an oil ministry employee and a resident of Sadr City, said he was on his way to the funeral when he saw a flash and felt the shock wave of the blast.
“We hurried toward the blazing tent. We found scattered chairs, tables, food on the ground mixed with blood, women covered with black from the house, shouting,” he said. “My friend and I were on our way to a funeral for an old woman, but tomorrow we should go to a lot of funerals for this cruel blast.”
Also Wednesday evening, a bomb went off in the mostly Shiite district of Karradah in central Baghdad, wounding nine civilians, police said. There were no claims of responsibility for the blasts in Ramadi and Baghdad, but suspicion fell on Sunni extremists who have targeted security forces and Shiite communities in an apparent attempt to re-ignite sectarian strife and destabilize the country.
In Baghdad, dozens of mourners, including senior officials from the Interior Ministry, attended the funeral of the two traffic policemen who were killed in eastern Baghdad. Fellow traffic police motorcyclists led the funeral procession, which included the slain officers' wooden caskets wrapped in Iraqi flags.
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