Mohammed Haider, 2, was held by his mother at a hospital after he was wounded in a suicide attack near Baghdad.
(Karim Kadin/ Associated Press)
Blast kills 54 in Iraq, shaking faith in security forces
Female bomber attacks Shi’ites on pilgrimage
Mohammed Haider, 2, was held by his mother at a hospital after he was wounded in a suicide attack near Baghdad.
(Karim Kadin/ Associated Press)
BAGHDAD - A woman who veiled her explosives in a black robe struck a column of Shi’ite pilgrims on the outskirts of Baghdad yesterday in a suicide attack that Iraqi officials had predicted but could not stop.
Police and hospital officials said 54 people, including 18 women and 12 children, were killed and 117 were wounded, the Associated Press reported. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
The attack, coming a week after four enormous bombings in Baghdad using vehicles driven by suicide bombers, was staged along a major roadway in an industrial district on the northern edge of Baghdad.
The bombing occurred despite what officials had pledged would be intensified security for the annual pilgrimage to Shi’ite Islam’s holiest shrine in Iraq, underscoring the ability of insurgents to outmaneuver the country’s security forces, seemingly at will.
Two more attacks - one with a grenade, another with a roadside bomb - later struck more pilgrims in southern Baghdad, injuring 16.
The attacks compounded a sense of insecurity in Baghdad ahead of a parliamentary election in March, which already is inflaming political tensions.
The bomber was able to mingle among pilgrims, evidently unsearched, before detonating what officials described as a vest or belt of explosives.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bombing. The main insurgency group here, the Islamic State of Iraq, claimed responsibility for the previous attacks, which were highly coordinated and were clearly intended to attack the credibility of Prime Minister Nouri Kamal al-Maliki’s government.
The force of the blast and shrapnel cut through a crowd near a tent that had been erected to provide shelter, food, and water for pilgrims making their way to Karbala to commemorate Imam Hussein, a grandson of the Prophet Mohammed.
One man who was wounded, Aqil Jassim, spoke of blood “falling like rain.’’ Another blamed the “blind hatred’’ of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a domestic insurgent group, for the bombing, but Jassim also faulted Iraq’s police and army. The attack again raised doubts about their tactics, training, and professionalism.
One of Iraq’s main weapons against bombs has been a detector of dubious efficacy; its manufacturer faces fraud charges in Britain.
The Baghdad Operations Command, which oversees security in the capital region, said that the bomber detonated her explosives near a place where women were being searched. Among those killed, the command said in a statement, were three women who had volunteered to conduct searches of other women.
Even as word spread of yet another attack, the command’s spokesman, Major General Qassim Atta al-Moussawi, announced that “a large number’’ of 134 officers and soldiers who were under investigation following last week’s attacks would face court-martial for negligence and dereliction of duty.
He also told Iraqis and officials to be vigilant. In a statement, he said that insurgents had developed “new highly explosive formulas’’ to avoid detection.
Hundreds of thousands of Shi’ites from Iraq, Iran, and beyond make their way to Karbala each year. Many do so on foot, a journey that can take weeks.
The pilgrimage was banned by Saddam Hussein’s government, resumed with fervor by the country’s Shi’ite majority after the US invasion in 2003, and has been attacked regularly since.
The pilgrims, along with the tents, which are festooned with the green and black flags of the faith, clog roads headed to Karbala for days before the pilgrimage’s culmination, known as Arbaeen, which is Friday.
Despite road closings and other measures to heighten security, the attacks have continued as relentlessly as the marchers.
Samir Mahmoud, a pilgrim making his way to Karbala from a village north of Baquba, was knocked unconscious by the bombing. When he came to, he said, he witnessed a scene of carnage, with stunned survivors staggering among body parts.
Before the blast he spoke with a man wearing a white shroud inscribed with words saying it would be used to wrap his body if he died on the road to Karbala. He was among those killed, Mahmoud said.
The use of suicide bombers had diminished recently. Diyala, the home province of many of the pilgrims killed yesterday, has long been a center for the recruiting and training of female bombers.
Material from the Associated Press was included in this report. 
© Copyright 2010 Globe Newspaper Company.
