Baghdad, Sept 25: A series of blasts killed at least 10 people and wounded scores more on Sunday in what a local Iraqi official called a sectarian strike on a holy Shiite city whose residents are still reeling from being targeted in a deadly bus hijacking in a Sunni region earlier this month.
Government officials said a total of four explosions struck the city of Karbala around 10 a.m. in a steady drumbeat over a five-minute period, meaning they likely were coordinated.
Three government officials from Karbala provincial council, Mohammed al-Moussawi and Hussein Shadhan al-Aboudi, and Parliamentarian Jawad Kadim al-Hassnawi ,said 10 people died in the blasts.
“The aim of these explosions is to ignite the sectarian sedition after the killing of 22 Karbala residents in the Anbar desert two weeks ago,” al-Aboudi said. “They also aim to destabilise the security situation in Karbala.”
He was referring to a Sept. 12 strike on a bus of Shiite pilgrims from Karbala that was hijacked in Iraq's Sunni-dominated Anbar province as it headed to a shrine in Damascus, Syria. Gunmen dressed in military-style uniforms ordered 22 men off the bus and executed them in a remote desert area near the highway.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has been trying to tamp down tensions between officials in Karbala and Anbar since the hijacking. Four suspects are being held in the case, and al-Maliki's military advisers say at least some foreigners were among the plotters.
That attack alarmed Iraqi and U.S. security officials who are uneasily watching to see if stability will plummet while the American military continues withdrawing from the country. Under a 2008 security agreement, all U.S. troops are required to be out of Iraq by the end of the year.
Two local police and hospital officials put the death toll at 11. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to release the information. The number of wounded people ranged from 40 to as high as 90. AP
