HOLY CITY OF KARBALA, Iraq: To mark ‘Arbaeen Al-Husseini’ (forty days after the martyrdom of Al-Imam Abi Abdellah Al-Hussein (AS)), hundreds of thousands of mourning devotees have reached in the holy city of Karbala holding flags inscribed with statements showing their wela (devotion) for Ahl-el Beit (AS).

Security has been beefed up in connection with the occasion which falls on Safar 20. Arrangements were made to facilitate the Husseini mourners.

Meanwhile, more than a dozen Husseini mourners have been martyred while they were on their way to Karbala to commemorate Arbaeen there.

Nine were martyred in Baghdad when terrorists attacked them, four (2 women, 2 children) at the route from Hilla to Karbala due to a bomb blast, one woman kissed martyrdom as a bomb ripped through a bus which was going to Karbala for Arbaeen. Many were injured.