KERBALA: Iraq deployed tens of thousands of soldiers to protect religious sites on Saturday, part of intensified security measures the government hopes will prevent bloodshed that has marred Shiite ceremonies in previous years.

Tightened security reflects not only the ongoing threat from militants who targeted Shiite gatherings since 2003, but also the potential political damage major attacks could do ahead of national polls in March.

Over a million people are expected to converge on Sunday in the city of Kerbala, south of Baghdad, for the culmination of Ashura rituals.

Kerbala Gov. Amal Al-Hir said 20,000 members of Iraq’s security forces had formed eight cordons around the city. A thousand snipers were perched on buildings and troops stood watch with bomb-sniffing dogs and devices to detect explosives.

Hundreds of women will search women’s voluminous black robes, which have been used to conceal bombs in the past. Security was intensified too in Baghdad, where many people began the 80 km walk to Kerbala. Others headed toward an important Shiite shrine in Baghdad’s Kadhimiya district.

Officials shut down vehicle traffic in Kadhimiya to prevent explosives planted in cars or motorcycles.

Despite the added security, seven people were killed and many others wounded in attacks around Baghdad.

Two worshippers were killed and eight others wounded when a bomb struck a procession in the eastern neighborhood of Baghdad Jadida in the afternoon, a police officer said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

In a separate attack in the east Baghdad neighborhood of Fedhailia, three people were killed and five wounded by a bomb, according to an Interior Ministry official who did not want to be named.

Also on Saturday army Lt. Col. Ibrahim Khalil was shot dead by unidentified gunmen along a main road in east Baghdad, the official added.

And in the predominantly Sunni town of Abu Ghraib, just west of the capital, tribal leader Mahmoud Jassim Al-Obeidi was killed by a bomb exploded outside his home early Saturday, a local official said.For Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki’s government, avoiding major bloodshed is particularly important before the March 7 general election.

A series of spectacular attacks targeting state buildings in Baghdad has undermined Maliki’s position as the man who improved security in Iraq and tackled the worst of the violence unleashed by the US invasion in 2003.

The election is expected to be a competitive one, as Maliki and his Shiite rivals try to build cross-sectarian alliances that will appeal to Iraqis fed up with years of violence, disorder and government corruption.

Thousands of worshippers waved giant pictures of Hussein as they crowded outside the Khilani mosque in central Baghdad to hear Ammar Al-Hakim, who heads the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, the biggest party representing Iraq’s Shiite majority.

In Kerbala, Hir, a member of Maliki’s Dawa party, vowed that this year’s Ashura rite would not be politicized.

“We will not allow this ceremony to be used as propaganda for the elections,” he said.

The elections present a major challenge for Iraq’s security forces, which have stepped into the lead as US troops prepare to halt combat operations in August 2010.

Iraqi officials acknowledge that Iraqi forces have been vulnerable to infiltration, but point to the strides they have made since 2003. This week, they stressed that Iraq, not US forces, was driving the security plans for Ashura.