Two female suicide homicide [ed.] bombers have attacked Baghdad’s main Shia shrine, killing at least 60 people and injuring 125 others, officials in Iraq say. The attack happened at the Imam Moussa al-Kadhim shrine in the Kadhimiya area as people gathered for Friday prayers. It comes a day after 84 people were killed in two separate suicide attacks in Baghdad and Baquba.

Many victims in Baquba and in Baghdad on Friday were Iranian pilgrims and the violence was condemned in Tehran. Violence fell sharply in the last year and the latest bombing does not change this trend, but it is a worrying development, says the BBC’s Jim Muir in Baghdad. The shrine was previously attacked by suicide  homicide [ed.] bombers in 2004.

Early reports suggested the attackers had detonated explosives belts near two gates of the revered shrine, which was crowded with worshippers.

However, a senior Iraqi bomb disposal officer later told Reuters news agency that the suicide homicide [ed.]attackers had used two leather bags packed with explosives, which they set down among the crowds at two of the gates to the shrine.

“They used sidestreets to get there and this enabled them to avoid checkpoints,” said Major-General Jihad al-Jabiri.

The howling of the wounded echoed through a nearby hospital where the victims were admitted, the hallways packed with security forces and anxious family members looking for loved ones, an AFP correspondent reports.

Sabiha Kadhim, 50, had come up from the southern Iraqi town of Diwaniya with her family, four of whom were killed in the blast.

Lying on a stretcher, her head and hand bandaged, she said: “I was near the shrine and suddenly there was a huge explosion and a fire broke out. “I saw human body parts everywhere.”

Qassim Zada, a 62-year-old Iranian pilgrim from Tehran, had come to the shrine with his wife. He now lay in hospital, his clothes soaked in blood. “I was only a few metres [yards] away from the explosion and I don’t know what happened,” he said. The shrine, in a predominantly Shia neighbourhood of the capital, has been a target for insurgents in the past.

Around 25 of those killed on Friday were Iranian pilgrims, Iraqi police said. Most of the 56 people now known to have been killed when a suicide bomber blew up a restaurant in Baquba, Diyala Province, on Thursday were also Iranian pilgrims.

On the same day, a suicide homicide [ed.] bomber infiltrated a crowd of displaced families in Baghdad as they received supplies from police, detonating an explosives belt and killing 28 people.

At Friday prayers in Tehran, Ali Akbar Rafsanjani – the influential Iranian cleric and former president – condemned Thursday’s attack on pilgrims.

“The incident yesterday was a very, very hateful example of those who harm religion in the name of religion,” he said in a sermon broadcast live by Iranian radio.

“We feel sorry for the Iraqi people because such corrupt groups have penetrated into Iraq. We also criticise America for not having the serious will to preserve Iraq’s security.”

Meanwhile, new statistics from Iraq’s health ministry say that since 2005 when violence worsened more than 87,000 Iraqis have been killed.

The figures are based on hospital and mortuary records and are seen as significant given the heated and highly politicised debate over the human cost of the war in Iraq, our correspondent says.

Let’s take a look at the facts. Major attacks in Iraq, this year so far:

• April 24 — Back-to-back suicide bombers strike near Shiite shrine in Baghdad, killing 60.
  
• April 23 — Baghdad suicide bomber hits Iraqis collecting humanitarian aid, killing 31.
  
• April 23 — Suicide bomber strikes restaurant north of Baghdad in Muqdadiyah, killing 57.
  
• April 6 — Series of bombings within four hours in Baghdad kill 37 people.
  
• March 26 — Car bomb tears through market in Shiite area in east Baghdad, killing 20.
  
• March 23 — Suicide bomber strikes Kurdish funeral north of Baghdad in Jalula, killing 27.
  
• March 10 — Suicide bomber targets tribal leaders at market in Abu Ghraib, killing 33.
  
• March 8 — Suicide bomber strikes police academy in Baghdad, killing at least 30.
  
• March 5 — Car bomb tears through livestock market in Hillah, killing 13.
  
• Feb. 13 — Female suicide bomber targets Shiite pilgrims in Musayyib, killing 40.
  
• Feb. 11 — Twin car bombs explode at a bus terminal and market area in Baghdad, killing 16.
  
• Jan. 4 — Female suicide bomber strikes Shiite pilgrims in Baghdad, killing 38.
  
• Jan. 2 — Suicide bomber hits luncheon at a tribal leader’s home in Youssifiyah, killing 23.

Time and time again, despite the usual protests of Western ‘oppression’, ‘discrimination’ and ‘Islamophobia’; when it comes down to actual numbers, proof and evidence - it is always shown that the biggest killers of Muslims on the planet are –  wait for it – other Muslims. If they can’t find any handy kuffar (infidels) to intimidate and violate – fellow believers have never been found to be wanting as candidates.

What a beautiful, peaceful religion.

[Main story - BBC Online]

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