2 wanted persons arrested, arms seized in Karbala

KARBALA / IraqiNews.com: Policemen in Karbala arrested two wanted persons in the northern part of the city and seized an arms cache in western Karbala on Sunday, the province’s police chief said. “Security authorities captured at a checkpoint in northern Karbala two wanted men local residents of Diala province based on intelligence tip-offs,” Maj. General Ali Jassem al-Ghariri told IraqiNews.com news agency. “The two arrested men will be handed over to the Diala police to continue the investigations and detect the organization to which they belong as well as operations they carried out in Diala,” he added. In the area of al-Okhayder, (40 km) western Karbala, Ghariri said, the Iraqi forces seized a weapons cache containing 114 artillery shells of different sizes. The holy Shiite city of Karbala has been witnessing a religious festivity termed by observed as the largest in the country as more than five million pilgrims have already arrived and still hundreds of thousands others are flowing on foot for the Arbaeen . The Arbaeen marks the 40th day after the death of Imam al-Hussein, the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson and the third holiest figure for Shiite Muslims, in the battle of Taf in Karbala in the Hegira year 61 (680 in the Gregorian calendar). Tight security measures have been in place and a large number of security personnel have been deployed in Iraq’s holy sites in preparation for the occasion. Karbala, said to house the tombs of Imam al-Hussein and his brother Imam al-Abbas, lies 130 km south of the Iraqi capital Baghdad. AmR (S)/SR 1