http://www.tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=213846
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U.S. condemns attacks on Shiite pilgrims in Iraq
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States condemns a series of attacks on Shiite
pilgrims in Iraq, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Friday.
Twin car bombs killed at least 40 people and wounded 145 others on Friday in
Iraq's holy city of Karbala as hundreds of thousands of Shiite pilgrims
observed a major religious rite, health officials said.
"The United States condemns the series of bombing attacks against Shiite
pilgrims in Iraq over the past week. Our thoughts and prayers are with the
victims and their families," the chief U.S. diplomat said in a statement.
"Attacking men, women and children engaged in religious pilgrimage is
reprehensible and exposes the cynical immorality of the terrorists who seek to
replace Iraq's hard-won progress with violence and intimidation," she said.
"They will not succeed in breaking the will of the Iraqi people. Iraqis are
committed to realizing the promise of their democracy. There is no better
rebuke to those who traffic in terror," she said.
Iraqi officials said at least 41 people were killed and dozens wounded on
Friday in a mortar attack on a crowd of pilgrims near the Iraqi Shiite shrine
city of Karbala.
The bomb struck Shiite pilgrims who were leaving Karbala, south of Baghdad,
where more than a million devotees had gathered to mark the festival of
Arbaeen.
It was the third major attack this week on worshippers who have for weeks been
traveling to Karbala on foot for the event which reached its climax earlier on
Friday.
Photo:
Mourners carry the coffins of victims killed in bombings in Kerbala, during a
funeral in Diwaniya, 150 km (95 miles) south of Baghdad February 6, 2010.
(Reuters photo)
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http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/02/20102651755191605.html
Saturday, February 06, 2010
17:55 Mecca time, 14:55 GMT
Karachi mourns bomb attack victims
More than 10,000 mourners were believed to have attended the
mass funeral in Karachi [AFP]
Thousands of people have gathered in Pakistan's largest city, Karachi,
for a mass funeral after at least 33 people were killed and more than 150
wounded in bomb attacks on Friday.
Mourners beat their chests and chanted religious slogans as 14 of the
victims from the attacks were taken to a Karachi sports field on Saturday.
"More than 10,000 people attended the funeral of the 14 deceased," Javed
Mehr, a local police official on duty at the ground, said.
"The entire area was sealed off by police and paramilitary rangers to
avoid any untoward incident."
Most shops, offices and schools in Karachi, a city of 18 million people,
were closed and public transport reduced as the mourners gathered.
Destabilising Karachi
Kamal Hyder, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Islamabad, said: "Right now
the people of Karachi are in mourning. Once they have buired their dead, there
will be more anger that the security have not been able to protect them.
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"Karachi has seen violence in the past. It would appear that whoever is
conducting these acts of terror in Karachi wants to destabilise Karachi," he
said.
"There has been a lot of talk that Karachi is a strategic city, it is a
port city, but whoever wants to hit Karachi primarily wants to do so because it
is the financial heart of the country.
Two bombs planted on buses carrying Shia worshippers were detonated
simultaneously on Friday, before a third bomb blew up outside the hospital
where the wounded were being taken.
Shia Muslims in Pakistan were marking Arbaeen - the end of a 40-day
mourning period for Imam Hussein, a grandson of the Prophet Muhammad who was
killed in a seventh century battle in Karbala.
Hasan Abdullah, a correspondent with Pakistan's Dawn News television,
told Al Jazeera: "The police say that a bomb was planted on the first and
second bus and they were detonated remotely."
Initial investigations had suspected a bomb-laden motorcycle was driven
into one of the buses.
"At least 20 suspects have been rounded up, and police say these suspects
belong to banned sectarian organisations," Abdullah said.
Raja Umer Khattab, a senior police investigator, said the Jundullah [Army
of God] group was behind the attacks.
"This is the same group that carried out the Ashura attack," he said,
referring to a bomb attack at a Shia procession in late December that killed 43
people.
'Nefarious designs'
National and local government officials urged calm following the blasts.
Attacks on buses carrying Shia worshippers were followed by a blast
at a hospital [AFP]
Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Pakistan's foreign minister, said he "condemned the
Karachi bombings and said terrorism will never be allowed to succeed in its
nefarious designs," according to a foreign ministry statement.
The statement quoted Qureshi as saying that "such acts only strengthen
our resolve to fight terrorism".
No one has claimed reponsibility for the blasts, but the Pakistani
Taliban has claimed past attacks against Shia Muslims in Pakistan.
Pakistan had tightened security in the city to protect mass processions
of worshippers during Ashoura, deploying tens of thousands of police and
paramilitary forces.
Karachi has a history of religious violence between Shia and Sunni
Muslims, but in recent weeks clashes between rival political parties have left
dozens dead.
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