Iraq attacks flayed across the globe as toll hits 192

By: Raza Ali

PARIS, France: Western and Asian governments as well as Muslim clerics expressed shock on Tuesday at coordinated suicide attacks on Ashur Day gatherings in Iraqi holy cities of Karbala and Kazemiyah as martyrdom toll reaches to 192.

Iraqi officials gave a casualty toll of 112 dead in Karbala attacks. In Kazemiyah, over 80 people were martyred, officials at a nearby hospital said. At least 600 people were injured.

A member of Iraq's US-backed Governing Council blamed the attacks on foreign groups bent on fomenting sectarian violence in Iraq after the US-led forces ousted Saddam regime last year.

Britain, Germany, France, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Syria condemned the attacks, which occurred when millions of husseini mourners from across the globe were converged on the holy cities marking the Day of Ashur.

Sunni and Shiite leaders throughout the world also denounced the terrorism urging Muslims to unite against those trying to divide them.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said the attacks were “outrageous” and aimed at hurting Iraq's majority Shiites and political progress made by the Governing Council.

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, after meeting Jordan's King Abdullah in Berlin, said the bombings highlighted the need for the UN to play a greater role in Iraq, but undermined the world body's ability to do so.

Speaking at a news conference, Governing Council member Mowaffaq Ar-Rubaie blamed the attacks on Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian whom Washington suspects of working for al-Qaeda.

“The civil war and sectarian strife that Zarqawi wants to inflict on the people of Iraq will not succeed. Zarqawi failed, his gang and their evil plans have failed,” he said. “Sunnis, Shiites, Arabs, Kurds, Assyrians, all Iraqis are determined to move forward… united we stand and we go forward to build a new Iraq.”

Iraqi Sunni cleric Ahmed Abdel Ghafour As-Samarai told the Al Arabiya television channel those trying to incite sectarian strife would not succeed.

Sheikh Ali Salman, a Shiite cleric in Bahrain, where Shiite are in majority called for unity.

Pakistani Shiite leader flayed the terrorism in holy cities. He told Reuters that it is “a work of colonial powers and their agents aimed at reaping unlawful benefit from such occasions to meet its targets in order to maintain its supremacy.”

Saudi clerics and speakers of husseini mourning sittings expressed their deep grief on the attacks and condoled the last Imam from the progeny of holy Prophet Muhammad (p) calling for unity against terrorists in Iraq.

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