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Female suicide bombers kill 57 in Iraq

(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-07-29 07:18

Three female suicide bombers killed at least 32 people and wounded 102 when they blew themselves up among Shi'ites walking through the streets of Baghdad on a religious pilgrimage yesterday, Iraqi police said.

In the northern oil city of Kirkuk a suicide bomber killed 25 people and wounded 185 at a protest against a disputed local elections law, Iraqi health and security officials said.

The attacks mark one of the bloodiest days in Iraq in months and underscored the fragility of recent security gains in the country, where violence is at its lowest level since early 2004.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the Baghdad blasts but Sunni Islamist Al-Qaida often targets Shi'ite pilgrims. It considers Shi'ism - the majority Muslim denomination in Iraq - heretical.

"These blasts that happened today will increase our determination to finalize this ceremony ... and defeat terrorism," pilgrim Taher Abd-Noor said.

At least 1 million people are expected to take part in the pilgrimage in the Iraqi capital, which peaks today and marks the death of one of Shi'ite Islam's 12 imams, one of the most important events in the Shi'ite religious calendar.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has urged foreign dignitaries and firms to come to Iraq, citing stronger Iraqi security forces more able to keep the peace with less US military help.

The apparently coordinated blasts in Baghdad shattered a period of relative calm in the city and took place despite heavy security for the annual pilgrimage to the Kadhamiya shrine.

The US military said it was possible three suicide bombers had carried out the attacks in the capital but did not specify if they were women. It put the death toll at 20.

Al-Qaida has increasingly used women to carry out suicide attacks because they can often evade the more stringent security checks applied to men. Women have carried out more than 20 suicide attacks in Iraq this year.

Television pictures showed police, firemen and other workers washing blood and clearing debris from the street at the scene of one of the blasts in Baghdad. A witness saw workers collecting pieces of flesh and body parts.

The blasts occurred in central Baghdad, an area many pilgrims pass through on their way to the shrine.

Police on Sunday also said gunmen killed seven pilgrims in southern Baghdad as they made their way to the shrine, but some officials yesterday questioned this account, saying they were not aware of the incident.

In Kirkuk, Kurdish television footage showed thousands of people demonstrating against Iraq's provincial elections law when an explosion prompted a rush for cover. A witness said there was a stampede as police fired into the air.

Tensions have been in high in the disputed oil-rich city before provincial elections expected to take place either late this year or early in 2009.

"The death toll so far is 25 killed and more than 180 wounded," said Colonel Yazgar Shukr, a Kirkuk security official. A Kirkuk health official confirmed the death toll.

Kurds in the ethnically mixed city say it should belong to the largely autonomous Kurdistan region, but Arabs and ethnic Turkmen want it to stay under central government authority.