Seven million Shiites commemorate Imam Hussein killing 0401269729 and others available (Roundup)

Feb 28, 2008, 15:28 GMT

Baghdad - Dressed in black and green stripes and carrying colourful banners, at least seven million Shiite Muslims, including the Iraqi vice president, commemorated Thursday the killing of Imam Hussein, the grandson of prophet Mohammed, in the southern city of Karbala, Iraqi officials and media reports said.

Millions of Iraqi Shiites along with at least 60,000 Shiite pilgrims from Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Lebanon, Pakistan, India and Iran carried food and water and walked for hundreds of kilometres to Karbala, following centuries-old rituals, in the hope that walking would earn them more rewards and blessings from God.

Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdul-Mahdy also walked on foot to the holy city to share in the celebration, according to officials of the Iraqi presidential press office.

The former regime of Saddam Hussein banned all Shiite religious ceremonies, including the ritual of travelling on foot to the shrine of Karbala, traditionally held to be the tomb of Hussein who died in the Battle of Karbala in 680 AD.

The battle was one on a series of conflicts between Sunnis and Shiites.

The event is marked by heightened security in the city, 120 kilometres south of the Iraqi capital Baghdad. The government has deployed 40,000 police and troops across Karbala in preparation for the ceremony.

'Rituals of the celebration went fine without any violent attacks, amid heightened security,' Okeil al-Khazaaly, the mayor of Karbala, told reporters.

Security forces arrested on Wednesday a would-be suicide bomber among the Shiite visitors at a checkpoint north of the holy city, the Iraqi news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI) said.

'We were suspicious about the suicide bomber after noticing slight stuffing around his arms and abdomen. We immediately arrested him before he blew himself up amongst the visitors,' sources told VOI.

Iraqi forces also arrested three suspects during a large inspection operation in southern Karbala in the early hours of Wednesday.

Weapons and explosives were also confiscated, according to VOI.

Karbala was the scene of deadly clashes during a religious ceremony in August between Shiite militias, in which at least 50 people were killed and hundreds injured.