More than 5 million visit Karbala for Shaaban ceremony

Massive crowds in Karbala, Iraq for this  year\'s Shia Shaaban ceremonies Iraq\'s historic city of Karbala, which contains several shrines of the Shia imams, was overflowing onThursday with millions of Shia visitors attending religious ceremonies for the15th night of the Arabic month Shaaban, which marks the anniversary of the 12th Shia imam called \"the Awaited Mahdi\".
Official sources told Arabstoday that the number of visitors to the city on Thursday is estimated to be 5 million, despite terrorist attacks which targeted the visitors in the last few days which forced the Iraqi army and  security forces to tighten up the security measures around the city on both Thursday and Friday.
\"The terrorist attacks which have targeted the visitors in the last few days have pushed us to change some of our security tactics in order to address these threats more effectively,\" said Colonel Diaa al-Wakeel, spokesperson of the Iraqi Military Forces to Arabstoday.
\"Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki gave orders to set-up a high committee to supervise the implementation of the security plan,\" he added.
Local authorities are struggling to fulfill the needs of this massive number of visitors, and according to Mohammed al-Moussawi, head of the city\'s municipality, the city\'s local budget can\'t sustain the expected costs.
\"The government doesn\'t take into account the massive number of visitors Karbala receives each year, and the municipality is supposed to guarantee that all the general services of the city are working sufficiently to serve both the visitors and the residents,\" said al-Moussawi.
Most of the general services in the Holy city for the Shia Muslims are paid for through religious funds of the Shiite sect, which receive donations from Shias in Iraq and all over the world.
Despite the fact that Karbala contains more than 5000 hotels, all are already full, with rooms having been reserved for several weeks. The massive number of visitors this year has forced the Iraqi army and the security apparatus to raise the number of soldiers participating in the security plan for this year\'s Shaaban ceremony to more than 40,000 soldiers, according to General Othman al-Ghanimi, the Leader of the Iraqi army\'s central command.
General Ghanimi added that the plan includes  several helicopters which will monitor the security conditions in the city during the ceremony.