Iraq Attacks on Pilgrims Kill 16

Local Editor

A series of bombings targeting pilgrims, including by a suicide attacker disguised as a woman, martyred 16 people in Baghdad Thursday despite heavy security across the capital.

The blasts are the latest in a protracted surge of nationwide bloodshed that has left more than 3,600 people dead this year, fueling fears Iraq is slipping back into the brutal communal bloodshed that blighted the country in 2006 and 2007.

Three blasts - two suicide bombings and a vehicle rigged with explosives - targeted pilgrims.

In the deadliest attack, a militant dressed in a black full-length woman's robe, or abaya, blew himself up amid a group of worshipers in the west Baghdad neighborhood of Mansour.

The explosion killed at least eight people and wounded 26, according to a police colonel and a medical source.

Another suicide attacker detonated a car bomb in Baab al-Sharji, central Baghdad, killing three more, while a vehicle rigged with explosives in the northern neighborhood of Urr left five dead.

The worshipers - many from elsewhere in the country - were all walking from across the city to the district of Kazimiyah, site of a shrine dedicated to Imam Moussa Kadhim [PBUH].

Due to the heightened threat of attack, the authorities have imposed heavy security measures on the capital, involving the closure of entire roads and barring certain vehicles from the streets.

Violence has surged in the past year to its highest level since 2008, while anti-government fighters control an entire city a short drive from Baghdad and parts of another.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team