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Violence in parts of North Iraq on Friday led to the deaths of at least 24 people, as several Shiite pilgrims visited the capital city for their annual commemoration rituals. The bombings came amid tight security in Baghdad, as Iraq struggles to deal with drawn-out bloodshed in the country that has seen over 3,700 people in the country die so far this year, fuelling fears that it will slip back into all-out conflict.
Friday’s lethal violence in the capital city and in the Nineveh province led to 24 deaths in addition to wounding 22 others, medical and security officials said. Mortar fire in Baghdad led to the deaths of three people, while two others were shot dead to the west of the capital. The mortar rounds were launched in the Zahra neighborhood, close to Kadhimiyah, where Shiite Muslims were preparing to commemorate the death of revered Shiite figureImam Musa Kadhim. Worshippers from all over the country have spent days walking to Kadhimiyah, which has a shrine in the memory of Imam Musa Kadhim, who had died in 799 A.D, and is the seventh of the twelve revered imams in Shiite Islam. The commemoration rituals end on Sunday.
The deadliest attack on Thursday happened in Urr district, where a car bomb resulted in the deaths of 10 people, including seven children. In Mansour, a male suicide bomber dressed in an abaya, a long woman’s robe, blew himself up in a crowd of pilgrims, killing at least nine people in the process. A second suicide bomber in Bab al-Sharji detonated a car bomb and killed five more people. Two civilians and three policemen were killed in suicide bomb attack at a security checkpoint in Mishahda, 30 kilometers north of Baghdad.
So far, no group has claimed responsibility for the attacks. Shia pilgrims are regularly targeted by extremist forces in the country.