6 killed, 38 injured in Baghdad mortar attack

At least six people were killed and 38 others wounded after two mortar rounds struck a square filled with Shiite pilgrims in Iraq's capital, security sources said to Arabstoday. Police sources said the death toll could rise. The attack on Sunday took place in Quraish Square in Baghdad's northwestern Kazimiyeh district, where pilgrims were gathering ahead of a religious festival to mark the death anniversary of the Shiite Imam Moussa al-Kadhim. The sources said security forces had been put on high alert and that a tight security belt was in place around Kazimiyeh in a bid to prevent further attacks on pilgrims walking towards the Imam Kazim shrine. A vehicle ban, excluding emergency vehicles such as ambulances, would also be imposed in Kazimiyeh from Monday and anyone entering the area would be searched, the sources added. The same religious event last year witnessed three bomb attacks that left nine dead and more than 30 injured. During the same religious pilgrimage in 2005, about 1000 people were killed when rumours of a bombing on the Bridge of the Imams – which leads to the golden-domed shrine – triggered a stampede that clogged the river below with bodies. Although overall violence in Iraq has dropped, Sunni Islamist fighters with links to al-Qaeda are still capable of lethal attacks and often hit Shiite targets to stir up the kind of sectarian pressure that almost led to civil war in 2006-2007. Sectarian tensions have been high in Iraq since the withdrawal of US forces in December, with the country’s main Shi’ite, Sunni and Kurdish blocs locked in a political crisis that threatens to wreck a power-sharing deal. An Interior Ministry source said security forces had been put on high alert and that a tight security belt was in place around Kadhimiya in a bid to prevent further attacks on pilgrims walking towards the Imam Kadhim shrine. A vehicle ban, excluding emergency vehicles like ambulances, would be imposed in Kadhimiya from Monday and anyone entering the area would be physically searched, said the source, declining to be identified. At least 26 people were killed and more than 190 wounded last Monday when a suicide bomber detonated an explosives-packed car outside a Shiite Muslim office in central Baghdad. A group that monitors online communication among insurgents said on Sunday Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Iraq had claimed responsibility for the attack on the government-run Shiite Endowment, which manages Shi’ite religious and cultural sites. The US-based SITE Intelligence Group said the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) group also said in the statement posted on Islamist websites that it had carried out 39 other attacks targeting Iraqi security forces and officials in Baghdad between March 24 and May 21.