Three suicide bombers, believed to be women, have killed 25 Shi'ite pilgrims as they headed to a holy shrine in Baghdad for a key religious ceremony that has been marred by bloodshed in the past.
It was the first of three attacks yesterday in Iraq, where another 15 people were killed in bombings in the northern oil hub of Kirkuk and the city of Baquba, security officials said.
Among the dead in the Baghdad bombings were women and children, according to security and hospital officials, who said that about 70 other people had been wounded.
The bombers struck in the Karrada district of central Baghdad as pilgrims were making their way on foot towards Kadhimiyah, in the north of the Iraqi capital, the site of a Shi'ite festival today.
A police official said, ''At least 25 people were killed and more than 70 were wounded in three suicide attacks, probably by female suicide bombers.''
A doctor at Ibn al-Nafess hospital, one of several dealing with casualties from the bombings, said he had received the bodies of 20 dead and 74 injured.
Yesterday, gunmen shot dead seven pilgrims in Madin, a town south of Baghdad, despite tight security for today's ceremony which honoured revered imam Musa Kadhim and is expected to attract up to one million worshippers.
Pilgrims from around the country are flocking to the Iraqi capital to mourn the imam, who died 12 centuries ago. Their imminent arrival has prompted authorities to step up security amid concerns over attacks.
In the northern city of Kirkuk, a suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowd of people protesting against a controversial provincial election law. Officials said the blast killed 22 and wounded 120.
The legislation for planned provincial elections has drawn fire from Kurds who are worried that any election could revive the issue of who owns valuable oil resources claimed by both Kurds and Arabs.
Police said another three men and a woman had been killed in a roadside bombing near Baquba, north of Baghdad.
Last week, eight people were killed when a female suicide bomber blew herself up as a Sahwa (Awakening) patrol passed by in Baquba, the capital of Diyala province, which remains one of the most dangerous places in the country.
Awakening groups were formed in the western province of Anbar when Sunni tribal leaders turned on their former al-Qaeda allies in 2006, and since then similar bodies have sprung up across Iraq, supported and paid for by the US military.
In Baghdad, streets have been blocked to vehicle traffic and an extra 5000 police and soldiers been deployed in Kadhimiyah, where Kadhim is said to be buried, and which has been the site of attacks in the past.
On August 31, 2005, at least 965 people died in a stampede at a Baghdad bridge seen as a symbol of Imam Kadhim's death. The stampede was triggered by rumours that a suicide bomber was in their midst and followed a mortar attack on the mosque that had killed seven people.
Shi'ites will congregate at the Kadhimiyah mosque to mourn Kadhim, believed to have been poisoned in Baghdad in the late eighth century by agents of the then ruling Sunni caliph, Haroun al-Rashid.
The gathering is a time for prayer and celebration with relatives and friends, but with the hundreds of thousands of people expected it also poses a threat to the security gains made in Baghdad over the past six months.
The US military admitted yesterday that American soldiers killed civilians last month after opening fire on a car on the heavily secured Baghdad Airport road.
The statement which called the man and two women ''law-abiding citizens of Iraq'' reversed earlier military claims that they were suspected militants who had shot at a parked American convoy.
But the military blamed the shooting on a series of misunderstandings and said ''neither the soldiers nor civilians involved in the incident were at fault''.
The June 25 deaths sparked controversy after Iraqi officials identified the three people killed as bank employees, not militants. The initial military statement claiming they were suspected militants raised concerns because it suggested the tight security on the road leading to Baghdad International Airport had been penetrated.
The military said yesterday that an investigation had found that the soldiers fired at the civilian car when it failed to follow orders to stop as it approached the convoy, which had pulled to the side of the road because of maintenance problems.
The soldiers became alarmed when they noticed the car coming towards them ''at what appeared to the soldiers to be a high rate of speed despite several obstructions in the road.
''Soldiers located at the rear of the convoy perceived the rapidly approaching vehicle as a threat and executed established escalation of force measures [which included warning shots].
''When the vehicle failed to respond to the soldiers' warning measures, it was engaged with small-arms fire.''
The military also found that no weapon had been recovered from the car. AFP, AP