Six killed in Iraqi car bombing

Up to six people were killed and 40 others wounded in a car bomb explosion near a procession of Shiite pilgrims on their way to the city of Samarra in north Iraq' s Salahudin province to observe religious ceremony, a provincial police source said.

"The latest reports said that six pilgrims were killed and 40 others were wounded by the blast," the source from the provincial operations command told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

The attack took place at about local time 1:30 p.m. (1030 GMT) when a booby-trapped car parked on the main road near the city of al-Dujail, some 60 km north of Baghdad, detonated while the procession passed by, the source said.

Earlier, the source put the toll at three killed and seven injured by the blast.

The pilgrims were heading to Samarra, some 110 km north of Baghdad, to mark the death of Imam Hassan al-Askari at his tomb in the shrine of Ali al-Hadi in the Sunni dominated city.

The shrine of Ali al-Hadi is one of the four most revered Shiite shrines in Iraq. It contains the tombs of Ali al-Hadi, who died in 868 A.D., and Hisson Hassan al-Askari who died in 874 A.D.

The two are the 10th and 11th of the Shiite's 12 most revered Imams. Shiite pilgrims visited the shrine from all over the world.

On Feb. 22, 2006, Samarra's shrine, also called the Golden Mosque, was attacked with a bomb, with its 100-year-old Golden Dome badly damaged, sparking reprisal killings between Shiite and Sunni communities that claimed lives of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.

Source: Xinhua