Iraq Bombs Kill Two Shiites after Deadly Day
Attacks against Shiite pilgrims in Baghdad on Friday killed two people, a day after Iraq suffered its worst violence in five months as it grappled with a political row that has stoked sectarian tensions.
The two bombs exploded in the morning on separate bridges in the Dura neighborhood of south Baghdad, an interior ministry official and a doctor at Yarmuk hospital said.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, both put the toll at two dead and seven wounded.
Friday's violence came a day after attacks against Shiites in Baghdad and southern Iraq killed 68 people and wounded more than 100, the highest death toll in the country since August.
The deadliest incident saw at least 45 people killed by a suicide attacker on the outskirts of the southern city of Nasiriyah as pilgrims were walking to the shrine city of Karbala for Arbaeen commemorations.
Arbaeen marks 40 days after the Ashura anniversary commemorating the killing of Imam Hussein, one of Shiite Islam's most revered figures, by the armies of the Caliph Yazid in 680 AD.
Five bombings also struck two Shiite neighborhoods of north Baghdad, killing 23 people and wounding dozens.
The violence came amid a political crisis that erupted in Iraq last month, pitting the Shiite-led government against the main Sunni-backed political party after authorities charged Sunni Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi with running a death squad.
Hashemi, who is holed up in the autonomous Kurdish region in the north, denies the charges, and his Iraqiya party has boycotted the cabinet and stayed away when parliament reopened on Tuesday.
The United Nations and the United States have called for calm and urged dialogue, but proposed talks between Iraqi political leaders to resolve the crisis have yet to take place.
Source: Agence France Presse
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