Female suicide bomber kills 19 Shiite pilgrims in Iraq
Washington, 15 August (IranVNC)—A female suicide bomber killed 19 people and wounded 75 while en route to a shrine in the holy Shiite city of Karbala about 25 miles south of Baghdad yesterday, police officials said, according to Reuters.
By: IranVNC
Published: Friday, August 15, 2008
14:35GMT—10:35AM/EST
IRAQ – BOMBS – SHIITE
Washington, 15 August (IranVNC)—A female suicide bomber killed 19 people and wounded 75 while en route to a shrine in the holy Shiite city of Karbala about 25 miles south of Baghdad yesterday, police officials said, according to Reuters.
The female bomber struck in the religiously mixed and volatile region of Iraq that US troops once called “the triangle of death”. Police told reporters that more than half of those killed were women.
A US military spokesperson in Baghdad, Captain Charles Calio, said that the suicide attack was a “hallmark of Al-Qaida” as the Sunni-Arab insurgent group has been increasingly turning to women to carry out its attacks in Iraq, reports AFP.
Also yesterday, another Shiite pilgrim was killed and seven others wounded as they made their way to Karbala, when a roadside bomb exploded in Baghdad’s commercial district of Karrada, AFP reports.
Amid the increased threat of violence, thousands of Shiite pilgrims are expected to travel to Karbala to commemorate Imam Mahdi [the Hidden Imam], an imam who is believed by the Shiites to have vanished as a boy and will return to restore justice in the world.
Sources: Agence France-Presse, Reuters
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