Baghdad - Dressed in black and green stripes and carrying
colourful banners, at least seven million Shiite Muslims, including
the Iraqi vice president, commemorated Thursday the killing of Imam
Hussein, the grandson of prophet Mohammed, in the southern city of
Karbala, Iraqi officials and media reports said.
Millions of Iraqi Shiites along with at least 60,000 Shiite
pilgrims from Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Lebanon, Pakistan, India and
Iran carried food and water and walked for hundreds of kilometres to
Karbala, following centuries-old rituals, in the hope that walking
would earn them more rewards and blessings from God.
Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdul-Mahdy also walked on foot to the
holy city to share in the celebration, according to officials of the
Iraqi presidential press office.
The former regime of Saddam Hussein banned all Shiite religious
ceremonies, including the ritual of travelling on foot to the shrine
of Karbala, traditionally held to be the tomb of Hussein who died in
the Battle of Karbala in 680 AD.
The battle was one on a series of conflicts between Sunnis and
Shiites.
The event is marked by heightened security in the city, 120
kilometres south of the Iraqi capital Baghdad. The government has
deployed 40,000 police and troops across Karbala in preparation for
the ceremony.
'Rituals of the celebration went fine without any violent attacks,
amid heightened security,' Okeil al-Khazaaly, the mayor of Karbala,
told reporters.
Security forces arrested on Wednesday a would-be suicide bomber
among the Shiite visitors at a checkpoint north of the holy city, the
Iraqi news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI) said.
'We were suspicious about the suicide bomber after noticing slight
stuffing around his arms and abdomen. We immediately arrested him
before he blew himself up amongst the visitors,' sources told VOI.
Iraqi forces also arrested three suspects during a large
inspection operation in southern Karbala in the early hours of
Wednesday.
Weapons and explosives were also confiscated, according to VOI.
Karbala was the scene of deadly clashes during a religious
ceremony in August between Shiite militias, in which at least 50
people were killed and hundreds injured.
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