BAGHDAD (AP) — Bombs struck Shiite pilgrims heading Wednesday to religious ceremonies, killing at least 12 people and wounding over 40, officials said. Fearing new sectarian tension, a U.N. official urged Iraqis not to respond to the "provocations of extremists."
The deadliest blast occurred near a bus station and outdoor market in the southwestern Baghdad neighborhood of Bayaa, where pilgrims were preparing to board buses for annual Shiite rituals south of the capital.
Iraqi military spokesman Maj. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi said 10 people were killed and 32 wounded in a single blast, which was caused by a bomb hidden in a small truck loaded with fruits and vegetables.
An Interior Ministry official said 17 people were killed by two bombs in the Bayaa market area. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not supposed to release information to media.
It was not possible to reconcile the difference conclusively, and Iraqi police kept journalists away from the bombing site.
Witnesses said the blast demolished several nearby vehicles, setting them ablaze. It was possible that the initial blast triggered secondary explosions in some of the vehicles, leading witnesses to believe there were multiple bombs.
Hours before the Bayaa blast, a car bomb exploded near a minibus packed with Shiite pilgrims in an area of western Baghdad, killing two people and wounding 12, police said.
Hundreds of thousands of Shiite pilgrims are expected to gather next Monday in Karbala, 50 miles south of Baghdad, to mark the end of 40 days of mourning that follow Ashoura, the anniversary of the seventh-century death of the Prophet Muhammad's grandson Hussein.
He was killed in a battle for the leadership of the nascent Muslim nation following Muhammad's death in 632.
The Iraqi military has deployed about 40,000 troops to protect the pilgrims against Sunni extremists, including al-Qaida in Iraq, who have frequently targeted Shiites during religious ceremonies since the fall of Saddam Hussein's Sunni-dominated regime in 2003.
Such attacks helped trigger the wave of Sunni-Shiite bloodletting which nearly plunged the nation into full-scale civil war until the U.S. troop surge of 2007 helped tamp down the violence.
Although sectarian slaughter has abated, U.S. and Iraqi officials are keenly aware that brutal attacks against civilians of either Islamic sect could trigger another bloody round of reprisal killings.
Mindful of that risk, the U.N. special representative in Iraq, Staffan de Mistura, condemned the pilgrim attacks as "murderous" acts that were "clearly designed to provoke sectarian tensions."
He called on all Iraqis "to not rise to the provocations of extremists" and take revenge on civilians of the rival sect.
Also Wednesday, a suicide car bomber attacked a joint U.S.-Iraqi patrol in Mosul, killing one Iraqi soldier and wounding another, according to U.S. military spokesman Maj. Jose A. Lopez.
Four other Iraqi security troops were killed in two separate attacks Wednesday in Mosul, which U.S. officials describe as al-Qaida's last major urban stronghold in Iraq.
There were no reports of U.S. casualties in the Wednesday attacks. Last Monday, however, four U.S. soldiers were killed in a suicide car bombing in Mosul.
Also in Mosul, a senior member of a Sunni party, Ahmed Fatihi al-Jubouri, was slain Wednesday as he left a mosque, said police Col. Edan al-Jubouri, who was no relation.
The bombings Wednesday followed a relative lull in violence — already at five-year lows — which followed the Jan. 31 elections for ruling councils in most of Iraq's 18 provinces.
U.S. officials hoped those elections, which took place without major attacks, would encourage disaffected Sunnis and Shiites to feel they had a stake in the political process and abandon violence.
In Baghdad, Iran's foreign minister led a delegation of oil and banking officials to discuss expanding ties between the two countries — a sign of the growing foreign interest in Iraq's economic potential in the Middle East.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said he was optimistic that conditions throughout the Middle East will improve if President Barack Obama sticks by promises for change that he made during the U.S. election campaign.
"We looked positively at the slogans presented by Obama, and we are still at the same position: If the U.S. administration wants to goes with them, then it's good news," Mottaki told reporters, without citing specifics.
Mottaki, who arrived Wednesday, made his remarks one day after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared his country was ready for talks with the United States "in a fair atmosphere with mutual respect."
It was the strongest signal yet that Tehran welcomes Obama's calls for dialogue after three decades of hostility since the overthrow of the U.S.-backed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in 1979.
