BAGHDAD — Roadside bombs struck a pair of minibuses filled with Shiite pilgrims returning to Baghdad on Monday, killing eight people, officials said, in the latest of a series of deadly attacks targeting the pilgrims.
The first bomb rocked a minibus pulling into a busy square in the Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City in Baghdad, killing four and wounding 11 others, said a police official. The bus was returning from the holy city of Karbala.
The second minibus, also coming from Karbala, was hit in the Shiite neighborhood of al-Kamaliya in southeast Baghdad, killing four people and wounding 13 others, said the official.
The attacks followed a series of bombings last week, targeting pilgrims heading to Karbala, that killed 60 people.
Hundreds of thousands of Shiite pilgrims converged on Karbala in recent days to celebrate the end of 40 days of mourning that follow the anniversary of the seventh-century death of one of Shiite Islam’s most revered saints, the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson Hussein.
Most of those pilgrims left Karbala early on Monday, and the Iraqi government called on owners of private vehicles to help ferry them home.
The Iraqi government deployed more than 30,000 security personnel to protect the pilgrims. The Associated Press
