IRAQ: Shi'ite Muslims celebrate major religious festival amid tightened security

Shiite Muslim pilgrims gathered in Iraq's holy city of Kerbala on Friday (September 8, 2006) for the climax of a major religious festival amid heavy security as the daily toll of casualties mounted in a sectarian war. Massive crowds of the faithful streamed through the streets of Kerbala, 110 km (70 miles) south of Baghdad, and headed to shrines, for praying and chanting. No major attacks were reported against the masses of Shi'ites who gathered to celebrate the birthday of a revered imam who disappeared more than a millennium ago. The pilgrims, whose numbers were estimated at 2 million, were paying homage to a Shiite figure known as the Mahdi. According to their belief, the Mahdi will return some day in Christ-like fashion to save the faithful. Kerbala, with its two magnificent, gold-domed shrines, is one of the jewels of the Shi'ite world and has been the site of numerous attacks targeting pilgrims, including multiple suicide bombings during a religious celebration in spring 2004 that left 130 worshipers dead and hundreds injured. Organisers said a heavy security presence by police and Iraqi troops had succeeded in keeping out Sunni al Qaeda suicide bombers who have disrupted previous pilgrimages. Suppressed under Saddam Hussein's Sunni-led secular regime, Shi'ite Muslim rituals like this week's Shaabaniya, which celebrates the birth of a 9th century imam, are hugely popular now that the Shi'ite majority is enjoys political freedom. Ending their festival on Saturday (September 8) Shi'ite pilgrims who converged on the city from other Iraqi cities, many of them walked for days on foot, started to leave the city. Four people were killed and six wounded by mortars on the road near Mussayab, just north of the city.

ITN Source | September 9, 2006

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