A suicide bomber has killed eight people after blowing himself up outside a Shiite mosque in Baquba during a ceremony marking Ashura, police said Thursday.
The attacker struck as devotees were leaving the mosque to begin a street procession as part of rituals commemorating the killing of Imam Hussein by armies of the Sunni caliph Yazid in 680, police Lieutenant-Colonel Najim al-Soumaidaie said.
"The suicide bomber detonated his explosives as people were leaving the mosque," Soumaidaie told AFP. "At least eight people were killed and we have 15 wounded."
Millions of Shiites across Iraq have been observing Ashura for the past week, with the main ceremonies culminating on Saturday in the shrine city of Karbala, 110 kilometres (70 miles) south of Baghdad, where some two million devotees are expected to congregate.
Baquba is capital of restive Diyala province, now considered the most dangerous area in Iraq after US and Iraqi forces chased Al-Qaeda insurgents out of their strongholds in Baghdad and surrounding areas.
The province is the focus of a massive sweep against Al-Qaeda, known as Operation Iron Harvest and part of the Phantom Phoenix assault targeting insurgents across the country launched on January 8.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com
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