The attacks — the deadliest of which occurred in northern Baghdad's predominantly Sunni neighborhood of Azamiyah — offered a clear indication of the push by insurgents to exploit Iraq's political vacuum and destabilize the country as US troops head home.
Police said the bloody suicide bombing that killed 32 and wounded more than 90 people, split the hot Wednesday evening air as Shiite pilgrims were about to cross a bridge leading to the a shrine in the Shiite Kazimiyah neighborhood where the seventh imam is buried.
A 30-year-old Sunni resident of Azamiyah said he was drinking tea and watching pilgrims walk by when he and his friends heard the blast.
“We heard a big explosion and everybody rushed to the site to see bodies and hear wounded people, screaming for help, Saif Al-Azami told The Associated Press. “We helped carry the wounded to the hospital before the ambulances arrived,” he said, adding that some of his Sunni friends who were serving food and water to the Shiite pilgrims were killed and wounded in the attacks.
Militants were able to strike even as security forces were on high alert in the capital, where Shiite pilgrims from all over Iraq converged on a mosque in the northern Baghdad neighborhood to mark the anniversary of the death of Moussa Al-Kadhim, the seventh imam.
A vehicle ban was in place across Kazimiyah, and 200,000 members of security forces were deployed along the way to the shrine, searching pilgrims for weapons at various checkpoints.
Though violence has dropped across Iraq, religious processions, holy sites and security forces are still regularly targeted by insurgents trying to re-ignite sectarian bloodshed that had the nation teetering on the brink of civil war from 2005 to 2007.
