By Jamal Hashim, Xinhua,
Baghdad : Hundreds of thousands of Shiite Muslims rallied at holy sites of Karbala and Kadhmiyah for the annual religious ritual of Ashura on Wednesday amid tight security measures after a bomber killed 40 pilgrims a few days ago.
Shiite pilgrims of Iraq and other countries, including Iran, flocked into Karbala, some 110 km south of Baghdad, and into Kadhmiyah in northern Baghdad to commemorate Ashura, which marks the death of Imam Hussein, grandson of Prophet Mohammed, who was killed and buried in Karbala in 680 AD.
Aqil al-Khazaali, governor of Karbala province estimated that some 1.5 million pilgrims are commemorating Ashura, about 50,000 of them are Iranians along with 10,000 more from other countries.
Numbers of black-clad men, young men and children, waving green, black and red flags, and accompanying with drummers, marched through the streets of Karbala and Kadhmiyah.
Some pilgrims beat their chests and heads, performed self-flagellation with chains and blades, or cut their heads with swords, letting blood streaming down their faces and bodies in honor of Imam Hussein who was killed in the battle of Karbala in the seventh century and since then became a key moment in the Sunni-Shiite schism.
Thousands of Iraqi security troops manned dozens of checkpoints and patrols across Baghdad and thousands more of security members with hundreds of civilian guards, recruited by Shiite clerics, were deployed in and around the city of Karbala to protect the worshippers, according to security officials.
Iraqi authorities have closed the shrine of Mussa al-Kadhim in Baghdad’s Kadhmiyah neighborhood to women amid security concerns about reports said that a suicide bomber has been recruited to attack worshippers when the Shiite religious ceremony reaches its climax, Brigadier Qassim Atta, spokesman of Baghdad security plan, said.
The reason behind barring women from the Kadhim shrine is that Iraqi security forces lack of female members, thus many women will be allowed to cross security checkpoints unsearched because according to Iraqi culture it is embarrassing for male security members to search women.
On Sunday a female suicide bomber blew herself up among a crowd of Shiite pilgrims, including Iranians, outside the Kadhim shrine, killing up to 40 people and wounding 72 others.
The woman apparently targeted the group of Iranian pilgrims and killed 16 of them and wounded 32 others, according to Iraqi police.
“We are ready to foil any kind of security violation, we have greater number of strong men who are brave enough to fight terrorists and defeat them,” Abbas Fadhil, a security member told Xinhua at a Baghdad checkpoint.
“I am ready to sacrifice myself to protect the pilgrims and I would be honored to martyr in the same day that Imam Hussein was martyred,” Fadhil said.
Ali Abdul Amir, 25, a pilgrim walking to Imam Mussa al-Kadhim shrine said, “Yes, we trust the security measures and I think we are safe although there was a suicide bomb attack few days ago, but it won’t deter us from doing our religious duty.”
“To me, the visit is worth even to risk my life, it is very important for me to be close to Imam Kadhim, who is the grandson of Imam Hussein,” Amir said.