Attacks on Shiite Pilgrims Continue

[struggle4progress]

By ALISSA J. RUBIN
Published: March 8, 2007

BAGHDAD, March 7 — For the second straight day, insurgents struck at Shiite pilgrims and other civilians across central Iraq on Wednesday, apparently seeking to reignite a cycle of sectarian retribution as hundreds of thousands of Shiites made their pilgrimage to Karbala to commemorate the martyrdom of Imam Hussein ...

Attacks against Shiite pilgrims making their way to Karbala for the Arbaeen holiday this weekend continued on Wednesday, though none were as bad as the coordinated bombings that killed at least 113 people on Tuesday at a false aid station for pilgrims in Hilla.

Shiite leaders counseled restraint among their followers, and mainstream Sunni groups condemned the recent attacks. A neighborhood commander of the Mahdi Army, the unruly Shiite militia blamed for countless sectarian crimes, said the militia’s fighters were respecting an order from their leader, the cleric Moktada al-Sadr, to keep calm.

“We would suck the blood of the Sunnis,” Nazar Sharif, 34, a leader of the Mahdi Army in the Sadriya neighborhood of central Baghdad, said in an interview on Wednesday. “But we can’t because Moktada asked us to avoid clashes with the military and with the Sunnis.” ...

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/08/world/middleeast/08iraq.html