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At least 10 Shiite pilgrims killed in suicide bombing in Iraq

Arab World Materials 12 February 2011 17:38 (UTC +04:00)
At least ten Shiite pilgrims were killed and 19 wounded in a suicide bomb attack near the city of Samarra in Salahudin province in north of Baghdad on Saturday.
At least 10 Shiite pilgrims killed in suicide bombing in Iraq

At least ten Shiite pilgrims were killed and 19 wounded in a suicide bomb attack near the city of Samarra in Salahudin province in north of Baghdad on Saturday, a provincial police source said.

The attack took place in the afternoon when a suicide bomber struck a bus carrying Shiite pilgrims while crossing a checkpoint outside Samarra, some 110 km north of Baghdad, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

The pilgrims were heading to observe a religious ceremony that marks the death of Imam Hassan al-Askari at his tomb in the shrine of Ali al-Hadi in the Sunni-dominated city.

The shrine of Ali al-Hadi, one of the four most revered Shiite shrines in Iraq, contains the tombs of Ali al-Hadi, who died in 868 A.D., and Hisson Hassan al-Askari, who died in 874 A.D.

The two are the 10th and 11th of the Shiite's 12 most revered Imams. Shiite pilgrims visited the shrine from all over the world.

Two days ago, a car bomb hit a procession of Shiite pilgrims heading to Samarra on the main road near the town of Dujail, some 60 km north of Baghdad, killing six of them and wounding some 40 others.

On Feb. 22, 2006, Samarra's shrine, also called the Golden Mosque, was attacked by a bomb, with its 100-year-old Golden Dome badly damaged, sparking reprisal killings between Shiite and Sunni communities that claimed lives of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.

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