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| Iraq |
| Two Shiite Worshippers Gunned Down in Iraq |
| 2009-12-23 |
| [Asharq al-Aswat] Two Shiite worshippers were gunned down on Tuesday close to the town of Baquba while leaving a mosque after carrying out rituals as part of the Shiite religious commemoration of Ashura, police said. "Men in a car opened fire on worshippers who were leaving the mosque, where they were participating in flagellation as part of preparations for Ashura, killing two of them," said a police officer. The shooting occurred in the village of Berginiyah, east of Baquba and northeast of Baghdad. The 10-day Ashura rituals commemorate the killing of Shiite Imam Hussein by armies of the Sunni caliph Yazid in 680. In the lead-up to it, some Shiites visit mosques to carry out self-flagellation rituals, hitting themselves on their backs with chains attached to sticks. Meanwhile, in Fallujah, a former insurgent bastion just west of Baghdad, the head of the town's city council Hamid Ahmed al-Hashim was wounded when a magnetic "sticky bomb" was attached to his car as he left his home. |
| Posted by:Fred |