14 Shiite pilgrims injured as bomb goes off in Baghdad

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: Fourteen Shiite pilgrims were wounded on Thursday in a bomb blast in southeastern Baghdad, a police source said. “An improvised explosive device went off while a convoy of Shiite pilgrims was passing in al-Rustumiya region, southeastern Baghdad, injuring 14 pilgrims, who were rushed to nearby hospitals for treatment,” the source told IraqiNews.com news agency. A series of explosions targeted Shiites heading for Imam Moussa al-Kadhim shrine, during which 49 people were killed and 213 were wounded. Tens of thousands of Shiite worshippers streamed into the Iraqi capital earlier in the day amid heavy security for the pilgrimage, a day after six people were killed in violence. In April 2009, two female suicide bombers detonated their payloads near the shrine, killing 65 people, including 20 Iranian pilgrims, and wounding 120 others. Shiites throughout Iraq and from the worldwide are heading for the al-Kadhimiya City in Baghdad on the occasion of the Imam Moussa al-Kadhim’s anniversary. Imam Moussa al-Kadhim, (Seventh of Safar, 128 AH- Twenty-fifth of Rajab, 183 AH) (Approximately: October 28, 746 AD-September 1, 799 AD), the seventh of the Twelve Shiite Imams. Imam Kadhim was the son of the sixth Shiite Imam, Ja’far al-Sadiq, and his mother’s name was Hamida Khatoon. He was born during the power struggles between the Umayyad and the Abbasid dynasties. In 795, Abbasid Caliph Harun al-Rashid imprisoned Moussa al-Kadhim. Four years later, he ordered Sindi ibn Shahiq to poison him. He died in a prison in Baghdad in 799 and was buried in Baghdad’s al-Karkh district in an area named after him: al-Kadhimiya. A stampede on Jisr al-Aiema (Bridge of Imams), leading to the tomb of Imam Kadhim in the town in 2005 killed more than 1,000 people and wounded 300 others, also causing part of the bridge to collapse. SH (S)/SR 2