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3 Iraqis Die As Blasts Hit Baghdad Attackers Strike Near Shiites Watching Film

Posted on: Wednesday, 8 February 2006, 12:00 CST

By Robert F. Worth

John O'Neil contributed reporting from New York. *

Two coordinated blasts in central Baghdad killed at least three people and wounded 20 on Tuesday. The U.S. military, meanwhile, announced the deaths of four marines killed by roadside bombs in western Iraq.

The blasts in Baghdad came as tens of thousands of Shiite pilgrims are streaming to the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala, where celebrations of the Ashura holiday will reach a climax on Wednesday and Thursday. Insurgents have staged attacks in Shiite areas in the south and in Baghdad during the holiday for the last two years, and Iraqi police officers and army units have stepped up security

. The Associated Press quoted a witness who reported that the first blast took place at a DVD stand in a market near Tahrir Square, when a man dropped a bag amid a crowd of people watching a film on the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, a Shiite saint. But a police lieutenant on the scene speculated that the vendors might have been targeted because some of them sold sexually explicit films. Ten minutes after the first blast, a second exploded among the crowd of rescuers, in what has become a common tactic of the insurgents. An official of the Iraqi Interior Ministry said that the two blasts killed three civilians and wounded 15 civilians and five police officers. The American military said Tuesday that a marine was killed on Sunday by an improvised bomb during combat in al-Anbar Province in western Iraq, and that three other marines were killed on Monday by a bomb in the city of Hit in the same region. The military also said that 100 Iraqi troops led a nighttime raid on a group of insurgents who were reportedly preparing to attack Ashura pilgrims. The raid, which was supported by American troops, led to the capture of 26 suspects and the seizure of 5 AK-47 rifles. And in Falluja, The Associated Press reported that a prominent Sunni cleric who had welcomed Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari and the American ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, when they visited last month, was killed in a drive-by shooting Tuesday.

Source: International Herald Tribune

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