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Bomb kills Iraq pilgrims going to holy city

A roadside bomb killed three people on a Shiite pilgrimage yesterday morning as they traveled through the outskirts of Baghdad -- the third attack in the past two days on pilgrims headed to the holy city of Karbala.

Monday's blast brings the total death toll from the attacks to 46.

A police official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to release the information, said that 15 people also were wounded in yesterday's attack.

On Sunday, a suicide bomber detonated himself among pilgrims taking a break in a refreshment tent along their road. The blast killed at least 40 people and wounded 60, making it one of the deadliest this year. Hours earlier, extremists attacked another group with guns and grenades in the predominantly Sunni Baghdad neighborhood of Dora, killing three and wounding 36, police said.

The suicide bomber targeted travelers near Iskandariyah, as authorities have fortified the capital and Karbala to keep away extremists.

The US embassy in Baghdad and US military forces issued a joint statement yesterday condemning the attacks.

"Those killed and wounded in yesterday's barbaric attacks in Baghdad and Iskandariyah were innocent citizens participating in an important religious commemoration," it said.

"This indiscriminate violence further reflects the nature of this enemy who will target even those practicing their religion in an effort to re-ignite sectarian strife in Iraq," it said.

Karbala is burial site of Imam Hussein, one of Shiite Islam's most revered figures, where ceremonies will culminate Wednesday to commemorate the end of the 40-day mourning period following the anniversary of his death.

Separately, six pilgrims drowned on Saturday in a boat accident on the Tigris River.

Meanwhile, an Iraqi militant group posted a video on the Internet yesterday that appeared to show the 2004 killing of 12 Nepalese men who worked for a contracting firm in Iraq.

Two still images taken in 2004 of the victims matched footage from the video. It was unclear why the video, from an Islamist group called the Army of Ansar al-Sunna, had been posted again on the Internet.

The group did not say the footage was from 2004 in yesterday's posting. Iraqi police and US officials in Baghdad said they had no immediate information on a recent kidnapping of Nepalis.

The 12 Nepali hostages who were killed in 2004 had gone to Iraq to work as cooks and cleaners for a Jordanian firm.

In the video, a militant beheaded one of the men with a knife. The rest were shot in the back lying face down in a sandy lot.

At the time of the 2004 killings, large numbers of Nepalis worked as laborers, drivers, guards, cleaners and cooks in Iraq, even though poor Nepal did not allow its nationals to travel or work in there because of security concerns.

The killing of foreign contractors by militants in Iraq has declined, matching an overall decline in violence.

Also, a suicide bomber in a wheelchair killed a top policeman and wounded two others when he blew himself up in the police operations center in the Iraqi city of Samarra yesterday, police said.

The bomber had entered the building in Samarra, 100km north of Baghdad, and asked to speak to assistant police chief Major-General Abdul-Jabbar Rabee Muttar, said Captain Luay Mohammed, an official in the Samarra police chief's office.

Major Muthanna Mohammed of Salahuddin provincial police said the bomber, in his 40s, then detonated a vest packed with explosives, killing Muttar and wounding two other policemen.
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