Gunmen ambushed a bus carrying Iranian pilgrims in Diyala province on Wednesday, killing five pilgrims and wounding 32 others, a provincial police source said, reported Xinhua
Early on Wednesday morning, unidentified armed men ambushed the bus carrying the pilgrims travelling from Iran to visit Shiite holy sites in Iraq at the Imam Weiss area, some 110 km northeast of Baghdad, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
The gunmen opened fire to the Shiite pilgrims and some of the wounded were in critical conditions, the source said.
Iraqi security forces rushed to the scene and searched the area while ambulances transferred the victims to Iraqi hospitals, the source added.
No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, but security forces usually blame the Sunni extremist groups of al- Qaida for such attacks.
Thousands of pilgrims from predominantly Shiite Iran regularly visit holy shrines in Iraq. Pilgrimages to Iraq's holy Shiite sites were halted throughout the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, and were only resumed in very limited numbers at the end of the 1990s.