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Bombings kill 43 in Baghdad, Kirkuk

by Dave Keating | July 28, 2008 at 03:53 am | 176 views | 2 comments | 7 recommendations

Gunmen ambushed Shiite pilgrims in the a Sunni town south of Baghdad Monday. The pilgrims were marching to a major shrine there for a religious holiday.

The area is a former stronghold of Al Qaeda in Iraq and was touted as one of the success stories of the US military surge, as it had seen a drop in viokence after Sunnis joined forces with the US military against the small Al Qaeda group operating there.

Explosions tore through a Shiite pilgrimage in Baghdad and a Kurdish rally in northern Iraq on Monday, killing at least 43 people and wounding scores more, police said.

The attacks were a devastating blow to the Iraqi public's growing confidence of recent security gains that have seen violence in Iraq drop to its lowest levels in more than four years.

The violence began in Baghdad, when a roadside bomb and three suicide attackers exploded in quick succession among crowds of Shiite pilgrims, killing at least 28 people and wounding 92, police and hospital officials said.

The attacks occurred as tens of thousands of worshippers streamed toward a shrine for an annual pilgrimage marking the death of an eighth-century saint.