By Xinhua
Mosul (Iraq) : Seven people were killed and 17 injured in a rocket attack on a Shia religious ceremony in a town in the northern Iraqi province of Nineveh Saturday, police said.
A Katyusha rocket struck a rally of Shia pilgrims commemorating the Ashura in the town of Tal Afar, 420 km northwest of Baghdad, killing seven people and wounding 17, Brigadier Najim Abdullah, who is also the mayor of the town, said.
Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Shia Muslims commemorated the religious occasion of Ashura across Iraq Friday, particularly in the Shia holy city of Karbala, some 110 km south of Baghdad.
The Ashura marks the death of Imam Hussein, Prophet Muhammad’s grandson, who was killed in a battle in Karbala in the seventh century.
In a separate incident Saturday four Iraqi soldiers were injured when five mortar rounds landed on an Iraqi Army base in western Mosul, some 400 km north of Baghdad, police said.