12 cells planning attacks during Ashuraa dismantled – official

KARBALA / IraqiNews.com: Twelve “terrorist” cells that were planning armed operations targeting pilgrims heading for Karbala for the Ashuraa were dismantled, according to a senior security official on Sunday. “Our security agencies, acting upon intelligence tip-offs, managed to dismantle 12 terrorist cells in several areas around the city of Karbala on Sunday (Dec. 12),” General Othman al-Ghanimi, the chief of the al-Furat al-Awsat Operations Command, said in a press conference attended by IraqiNews.com news agency correspondent. “These cells comprised 60 gunmen and there were all arrested and confessed to their plans for attacks targeting pilgrims to Karbala during the Ashuraa,” Ghanimi added. He noted that the security personnel also defused four improvised explosive devices on the Babel-Karbala highway and arrested 14 with weapons, mortars and IEDs in their possession. Thousands of Shiite Muslims from all over Iraq and neighboring countries would head for the shrine of Imam al-Hussein Ibn Ali in the holy Shiite city of Karbala for the Ashuraa, or the 10th of Muharram on the Muslim Hegira calendar. Ashuraa commemorates the slaughter of Imam al-Hussein, the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson, and his family and companions in the battle of Taf in Karbala in the Hegira year 61 (680 in the Gregorian calendar). Security agencies are working within a preemptive plan. We have intelligence elements spreading everywhere and we already deployed 30,000 security men on all the ways leading to Karbala. The holy Shiite city of Karbala lies 108 km south of the Iraqi capital Baghdad. AmR (S) 42