NEWS ALERT: FEMALE BOMBER KILLS AT LEAST 35 IN BAGHDAD

Female bomber kills at least 35 in Baghdad

Reuters
Sunday, January 4, 2009

http://www.iht.com/articles/reuters/2009/01/04/africa/OUKWD-UK-IRAQ-VIOLENCE.php

BAGHDAD: A female suicide bomber killed at least 35 people and wounded 65 in an attack on pilgrims entering a revered Shi'ite shrine in northwestern Baghdad on Sunday, the Iraqi government said.

The blast struck a checkpoint outside the Imam Moussa al-Kadhim shrine in Kadhimiya, a mainly Shi'ite area of Baghdad, as Shi'ites prepared for the Ashura holiday this week marking the death of Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Mohammad.

Most of the casualties were pilgrims from Iran, security spokesman Major-General Qassim Moussawi said.

"A woman wearing an explosive vest managed to reach one of the security checkpoints near the revered Kadhim shrine and exploded herself among a crowd of pilgrims," he said in a statement.
He gave an initial death toll of 35 killed and 65 wounded. Iraqi security sources said at least 38 people had died.

U.S. forces in Iraq came under an Iraqi mandate on January 1 in step with a bilateral pact that will require the withdrawal of the 140,000 U.S. troops by the end of 2011.

As the United States reduces its activities in Iraq, local forces are taking greater responsibility for security.

Almost six years after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, violence has dropped dramatically from the peak of sectarian bloodshed in 2006-2007. But militants regularly stage suicide bombings such as the one that shattered the calm in Baghdad on Sunday and other attacks.

Twenty-five people, including women and children, were killed in a blast at a taxi and bus station in the same neighbourhood on December 27
.
Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Shi'ites will visit the holy city of Kerbala, 80 km (50 miles) southwest of Baghdad throughout the Ashura week to mark the death of Hussein, one of the most important events in the Shi'ite calendar.

In 2004, more than 150 Shi'ite pilgrims were killed in coordinated suicide strikes on shrines in Baghdad and Kerbala during the holiday, attacks which heralded the sectarian fighting that consumed Iraq over the next few years.