Bombers kill 58 Shiite pilgrims

BAGHDAD - Bombers struck Shiite worshippers in two cities yesterday and gunmen ambushed a busload of pilgrims in a series of attacks that killed at least 58 people as more than 2 million Shiites jammed major shrines for ceremonies marking Ashoura, the holiest day of the Shiite calendar.

The bloodshed took place despite heightened security following a battle with messianic Shiites who authorities said planned an assault on Ashoura ceremonies. With security so intense at the main venues, extremists chose targets in smaller cities where safety measures were less stringent.

In the deadliest attack, a suicide bomber blew himself up among a crowd of worshippers entering a Shiite mosque in Mandali near the Iranian border, killing 26 people and wounding 47, according to police. At least 12 more died and 28 were wounded when a bomb exploded in a garbage can as Shiites were performing outdoor rituals in the largely Kurdish city of Khanaqin, police said.

In Baghdad, gunmen in two cars opened fire on a bus carrying pilgrims to the capital's most important Shiite shrine, killing seven and wounding seven, police said. Hours later, mortar shells rained down on two mostly Sunni neighborhoods, killing nine and wounding 30 in what police said appeared to be a reprisal attack.

One person was killed in a mortar attack on a Shiite neighborhood, police said. A Shiite man was shot dead in Baghdad and two policemen were killed in a bombing in Mosul, police said. At an Arab League meeting in Tunisia, Iraqi Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani asked other Arab countries to set aside room in their hospitals for wounded Iraqi police.

Intense security prevented major violence in the Shiite holy cities of Karbala and Najaf, venues for the biggest and most important Ashoura commemorations. Police yesterday found eight bodies of people slain by sectarian death squads in Baghdad, the lowest single-day total in months.

The U.S. military yesterday said that a Marine was killed Monday in fighting in Anbar province, an insurgent stronghold west of Baghdad, while an American soldier died in an accident northwest of Nasiriyah.

Ashoura ceremonies mark the 7th-century death of Imam Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Mohammad, in a battle near Karbala that cemented the Sunni-Shiite schism.

Worshippers beat themselves with chains, slice their heads with knives and pound their chests in expressions of grief over the death of Imam Hussein.

More than 1.5 million pilgrims, mostly Iraqis but from as far away as India and Pakistan, jammed the southern city of Karbala for the Ashoura commemorations, according to provincial Gov. Akeel al-Khazaali.

Hundreds of thousands more joined rituals in Najaf, Baghdad and other cities. *