Female suicide bombers kill 57 shia

BAGHDAD - Suicide bombers struck a Shiite pilgrimage in Baghdad and a Kurdish protest rally in northern Iraq on Monday, killing at least 57 people and wounding nearly 300, police said.

Three female suicide bombers blew their explosive vests in the middle of pilgrims in Baghdad, moments after a roadside bomb attack, killing at least 32 people and wounding 102, Iraqi officials said.

In the oil-rich northern city of Kirkuk, 25 people were killed and 185 wounded when a blast tore through a crowd of Kurds protesting a draft provincial elections law, officials said.

Local police said remains recovered from the scene showed the attacker was a woman. The U.S. military confirmed a suicide bombing but said there was no indication the
attacker was a woman.

Blow to confidence
The bombings were a devastating blow to the Iraqi public's growing confidence of recent security gains that have seen violence in Iraq drop to its lowest levels in more than four years.

A senior U.S. military official blamed al-Qaida in Iraq for the attacks in Baghdad. The attacks come ahead of U.S. and Iraqi military operations in early August aimed at routing out insurgents from rural hideouts in northern Iraq and solidify recent security gains in urban areas.

"At about 8 a.m. three female suicide bombers detonated themselves among pilgrims heading to Kazimiyah," the main Iraqi military spokesman in Baghdad, Brig. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, said in a statement posted on his Web site.

The pilgrims are marking the death of an eighth-century saint. The attacks took place in the mainly Shiite Karradah district, which is several miles away from the destination of the pilgrimage in Kazimiyah in northern Baghdad. Most of the dead were women and children, police and health officials said.

"I heard women and children crying and shouting and I saw burned women as dead bodies lied in pools of blood on the street," Mustapha Abdullah, a 32-year-old man who was injured in the stomach and legs, said from the hospital where he was being treated.

It was the deadliest attack in Baghdad since June 17, when a truck bombing killed 63 people in Hurriyah, a neighborhood that saw some of the worst Shiite-Sunni slaughter in 2006.

Power-sharing tension
In Kirkuk, the suicide bomber targeted Kurdish demonstrators who were protesting a provincial elections measure blocked in parliament because of disagreement over a power-sharing formula in the disputed city of Kirkuk, an oil-rich area.

Maj. Gen. Jamal Tahir, a Kirkuk police spokesman, said police found a car bomb nearby and detonated it safely.

After the suicide explosion, dozens of angry Kurds opened fire on the offices of a Turkomen political party, which opposes Kurdish claims on Kirkuk.

A police official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said no one was hurt in the attack and that the party offices were placed under police protection.

Suicide bombings are increasingly carried out by women, who are more easily able to hide explosives under their all-encompassing black Islamic robes, or abayas, and often are not searched at checkpoints.

Women searching women
But security forces have deployed about 200 women this week to search female pilgrims near Kazimiyah, where the Shiite saint Imam Moussa al-Kadhim is buried in a golden domed shrine.

Since the 2003 ouster of Saddam Hussein, who was a Sunni, Shiite political parties have encouraged huge turnouts at religious festivals to display the majority sect's power in Iraq. Sunni religious extremists have often targeted the gatherings to foment sectarian war, but that has not stopped the Shiites.

In 2005, at least 1,000 people also were killed in a bridge stampede caused by rumors of a suicide bomber in Baghdad during the Kazimiyah pilgrimage.

Elsewhere, a roadside bomb attack on Monday killed four civilians near Balad Ruz, 45 miles northeast of Baghdad, police said.

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[Kapoor5708]

@nahiddanish I do Agree With I'm Sunni But In Our Sec. there is a lot of Aggressive Person Who are Making Innocent People fight with the title of Sahaba Akram r.a.

But They do not tell the right issue why shia hate some sahaba...

That's why i respect shia because They are true Lovers Of Imam HUSSAIN...

No More Fight Please...........!

[nahiddanish]

these sunni are all terrorist everywhere in the world...they destroyed our country too....shias are peaceful....nahid from Afghanistan

[zkhannn]

Great... Shia are traitor, they allowd US to attack on innocent Sunni Iraqis.. They deserve to be killed..

[mohammedirakie]

@howie1962 what is ur point ....what if I read the quran? what proof would I get? I already readed the quran lol

[howie1962]

@mohammedirakie

u want proof just read the Quran.

[mohammedirakie]

@howie1962 whats wrong with this ignorants calling shia kufirs? you call us that because we adore the prophets family and do not like umar and abu bakr who where treating the daughter of the prophet badly thats why we shia are kafirs?....listen up buddy I don't really wanna wast my time because saying that without any proof you look uneducated.

[herself311]

Muslims killing muslims-again. Islam means violence and it is in the koran-fact!

[ahmedzahir12345]

@fuckdapuss everyone can see your bullshit not the reply of my question..i am asking u will u admit the death of hussein(ra) by the hands of shia if i give u authentic proof from your own sources..

YES OR NO ?

[howie1962]

Shia kafirs

ALLAHU AKBAR

[fuckdapuss]

@ahmedzahir12345 you afghan or paki dont understand Arabic pls dont teach me about islam i know who killd imam HUSSEIN(RA) that was the shimr with yazeeds command! thats why bin laden cia men could fool you non arab sunnis to follow usa intressts.. only to hurt russia the yazid followers make buisness with islam like yaziid and his father moawiya