Suicide blasts at mosques kill 27 in Iraq

Three explosions aimed at Shia worshippers ripped through Baghdad during Friday prayers and killed at least 27 people and injured dozens, of...

Three explosions aimed at Shia worshippers ripped through Baghdad during Friday prayers and killed at least 27 people and injured dozens, officials said, on the eve of Ashura. The first blast occurred near a mosque in Baghdad’s southern Dora neighbourhood and killed at least 15, police said.

A second blast caused by a suicide bomber occurred outside the Al Bayaa mosque in a predominantly Shia neighbourhood of western Baghdad, police said.

Two people were killed and five were injured when a third suicide bomber blew himself near an Ashura procession in the Shia Ash Shulah district northwest of the city centre.In a statement circulated at the mosque before the explosion, the Anti-Occupation Association of Muslim Scholars said the Sunni group denounced ‘‘any action that can provoke sectarian divisions or assaults or threats of displacement or any other actions.’’

Story continues below this ad

The attacks came as thousands of Shias marched through the city for Ashura in a show of strength a day after a Shia alliance was confirmed as the winner of last month’s historic election, handing the community power for the first time.

Friday’s attacks recalled Ashura last year, when 170 people were killed in a series of suicide bombings in Baghdad and Karbala, a holy city to the South of Baghdad where the Ashura ritual, commemorating a 7th century martyr, is most intense.

Dressed in black for mourning and holding aloft green banners bearing the name of Imam Hussein, the martyred grandson of the prophet Mohammad, thousands filled central Baghdad for the Ashura march.

Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), the main party in the Shia alliance that won the Jan. 30 election, addressed the crowd with a message of political conciliation.

Story continues below this ad

‘‘I call on all Iraqis to unite and I assure everyone the Iraq we want is a unified and secure Iraq where every citizen, without exception, enjoys justice and equality,’’ Hakim said.

Iraq’s Electoral Commission announced on Thursday that the main Shia coalition, the United Iraqi Alliance, had secured 140 seats in the Assembly, just enough for a slim majority. A Kurdish alliance came second and will have 75 seats in the Assembly.