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124 dead after blasts on Iraqi Shi'ite holy day
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-03-02 21:34 Blasts tore through Shi'ites marking their holiest
day in Baghdad and Kerbala Tuesday, killing at least 124 people on Iraq's
bloodiest day since Saddam Hussein's fall.
Furious leaders of the country's 60 percent Shi'ite majority branded the
attacks an attempt to ignite civil war.
Iraqi Shi'ite
Muslims pilgrims flee the scene of a blast March 2, 2004 after at least
five explosions shook the holy city of Kerbala.
[Reuters] |
Polish troops in Kerbala and U.S. soldiers in Baghdad said the blasts were
caused by mortars which landed among huge crowds of Shi'ites in
near-simultaneous attacks on the two cities.
The U.S. military said last month it had evidence al Qaeda guerrillas were
planning to attack Shi'ites to spark sectarian violence.
At least five explosions shook Kerbala, a holy city where more than two
million Shi'ites from Iraq, Iran and further afield had gathered. Colonel Raed
Nabil, the city police chief, said at least 70 Iraqis and Iranians were killed
in the attacks.
In Baghdad, four blasts hit the holiest Shi'ite mosque, the Kadhimiya mosque
in the north of the capital. The health minister said at least 54 people were
killed but the number of scattered body parts hampered collating a death toll.
One medic said the Baghdad toll could be more than 75.
In a separate attack in Baghdad, guerrillas threw a bomb at a U.S. military
vehicle early Tuesday, killing one American soldier and seriously wounding
another, the army said. The death took to 379 the number of U.S. soldiers killed
in action since the start of the U.S.-led war in Iraq nearly a year ago.
Shi'ites had packed Kerbala and some districts of Baghdad to mark Ashura, the
10th day of the month of Muharram when according to tradition Imam Hussein,
grandson of the Prophet Mohammad, was killed in battle more than 13 centuries
ago.
During the ceremony -- banned under the Sunni Muslim Saddam -- Shi'ites beat
their heads and chests and gash their heads with swords to show their grief and
echo the suffering of Imam Hussein.
"CRIMINAL ACT"
"This criminal act, on the holy day that marks the martyrdom of Hussein,
shows that the terrorists respect no boundaries, that they will kill visitors,
pilgrims from Iraq and innocents of all kinds," said Hamid al-Bayati, a senior
official in the Shi'ite Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.
"The people behind this act are what remains of the regime, backed by people
like al Qaeda with the goal of igniting civil strife, but we and the rest of the
Iraqi people are aware of this danger and will not succumb to it."
The U.S. military said in a statement that "those initiating these attacks
are cowards and terrorists." Officers said they had no information on who was
behind the attacks. U.S. forces in Iraq said previously they had intercepted a
computer disc with a letter from Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian who Washington
suspects of working for al Qaeda with a $10 million bounty on his head.
The U.S. military said the letter urged suicide bombings against Shi'ites in
a bid to spark civil war.
"Fighting the Shia is the way to take the nation to battle," read a U.S.
translation of the document. "We will undertake suicide operations and use car
bombs to harm them."
Pilgrims in Kerbala scattered after the blasts, panicking, weeping and
screaming. Paramedics rushed the wounded to a makeshift open-air hospital. Some
of the dead were taken away in garbage trucks, others covered by black shrouds
where they lay.
Shi'ites who had earlier gashed open their heads with swords queued up to
give blood to help the wounded.
Monday, the competing religious and ethnic groups in Iraq's U.S.-appointed
Governing Council forged an interim constitution, putting aside differences over
the role of Islam, representation for women and Kurdish demands for autonomy.
Shi'ites, persecuted for decades under Saddam, were forced to give up many of
their key demands during the talks. They had wanted Islam to be recognized as
the main source of legislation. Instead it was recognized as a source -- and a
bill of rights guaranteed religious freedom.
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