By Xinhua
Baghdad : A roadside bomb explosion went off in southern Baghdad on Monday near a crowd of pilgrims marching to commemorate one of Shiite Muslims’ holiest days, killing four people and wounding 12 others, an Interior Ministry source said. The attack occurred at about 8:00 a.m. (0500 GMT) in an intersection in the Zaafaraniyah neighborhood, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
Several deadly attacks took place in the past 24 hours against Shiite pilgrims who travel on foot on main roads from Baghdad to the holy city of Karbala, some 110 km south of Baghdad. One of the most deadliest attacks took place on Sunday afternoon when a suicide bomber blew his explosive vest at a crowd of pilgrims in the town of Iiskandriyah, some 50 km south of Baghdad, killing up to 40 people and wounding 60 others. Also on Sunday, three pilgrims were killed and 46 others were wounded when a roadside bomb detonated in the morning and was followed by gunfire from unknown gunmen on the highway in Baghdad’s southern neighborhood of Doura.
Hundreds of thousands of Shiite Muslims in Iraq and some other Muslim countries converge in the city of Karbala to observe the 40-day Arbaeen festival which remembers the martyrdom of Imam al-Hussein, the grandson of Prophet Mohammad, who was killed in the battle of al-Taf in Karbala in the seventh century.