Pilgrims slaughtered

last updated 8 January 2015

Karbala, Iraq

Four suicide bombers killed at least 140 worshipers at Muslim shrines this week in Baghdad and in the holy city of Karbala. The blasts, which came during the Shiite festival of Ashoura, sent body parts flying into panicked crowds. Shiites responded with rage toward American soldiers who arrived on the scene. In Baghdad, crowds threw rocks and trash at U.S. medics who were tending the wounded, and a loudspeaker blared, “This is the work of Jews and American occupation forces.” But a Shiite member of the Iraqi Governing Council said the attack looked like the work of foreign jihadists, possibly Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian linked to al Qaida. A video that’s been circulating in Baghdad shows several non-Iraqi Arabs vowing to carry out suicide bombings.