BAGHDAD: A twin car bombing Friday targeted a crowd of Shiites packing a highway as they walked to a city south of Baghdad for a religious ceremony, killing at least 41 and wounding 154 people, Iraqi Ministry officials said.
It was the third deadly bombing this week hitting the ceremony in which hundreds of thousands of people have been converging on the city of Kerbala.
Friday’s attack began shortly after noon when a parked car bomb exploded just east of one of three main entrances to Kerbala, two Health Ministry officials said. The explosion sent throngs of people running down the highway and straight into the path of a suicide car bomber who detonated the vehicle, they said. At least 154 people were wounded in the consecutive blasts, the officials said.
The attack came at the height of the religious ceremony when roads around Kerbala, 80 km south of Baghdad, were clogged with people trying to reach the city by Friday. The crowds made it difficult for ambulances to get to the wounded, a police officer said.
The Arbaeen, preceded by days of mass marches to Kerbala, marks the end of 40 days of mourning after the anniversary of the death of Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh).
Friday’s attack was just a short distance from where a bomb exploded two days earlier, killing around two dozen people. And on Monday, a woman suicide bomber killed at least 54 people heading for the city in an attack just north of Baghdad.
In another attack Friday, a roadside bomb struck a bus carrying people through Baghdad, killing one and wounding 13, police and hospital officials said.
