Local official killed in central Karbala

KARBALA / IraqiNews.com: The director of the Karbala provincial council was killed and two employees were wounded on Thursday morning in a bomb blast in central Karbala, an official source said. “An explosive charge, placed inside a car belongs to the Karbala provincial council carrying the director of the council and a number of employees, went off at the center of the city, killing the director and wounding two employees,” the source told IraqiNews.com. He did not reveal the names of the casualties. For his part, the media director of the Karbala health department Saleem Kazem told IraqiNews.com “ambulances carried one body and two wounded as a reason of the explosion that took place this morning.” “The two wounded were sent to the al-Hussein public hospital in Karbala for treatment,” Kazem added. An eyewitness had said earlier that several casualties were reported on Thursday morning as a blast ripped through a checkpoint in Karbala province. Karbala, with an estimated population of 572,300 people in 2003, is the capital of the province and is considered to be one of Shiite Muslims’ holiest cities. The city, 110 km south of Baghdad, is one of Iraq’s wealthiest, profiting both from religious visitors and agricultural produce, especially dates. It is made up of two districts, “Old Karbala,” the religious centre, and “New Karbala,” the residential district containing Islamic schools and government buildings. At the centre of the old city is Masjid al-Hussein, the tomb of Hussein Ibn Ali, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad by his daughter Fatima al-Zahraa and Ali Ibn Abi Taleb. Imam Hussein’s tomb is a place of pilgrimage for many Shiite Muslims, especially on the anniversary of the battle, the Day of Ashuraa. Many elderly pilgrims travel there to await death, as they believe the tomb to be one of the gates to paradise. On April 14, 2007, a car bomb exploded about 600 ft (200 m) from the shrine, killing 47 and wounding over 150. SH (S) 1