Bomb Blast Slays 38 Near Shrine

72 wounded after woman wearing explosives attacks pilgrims

Iranian women wait to enter the holy Shiite shrine of Imam Mousa al-Kazim in Baghdad, Iraq, Jan. 4, 2009, after a female suicide bomber blew herself up among a crowd of pilgrims there killing at least 38 people and wounding 72, the Iraqi army said. (Photo credit: Mahmoud Badri / AP)

January 4, 2009

BAGHDAD — A female suicide bomber killed at least 38 people and wounded 55 in an attack on pilgrims entering a revered Shiite shrine in northwestern Baghdad on Sunday, the Iraqi government said, according to Reuters.

The blast struck a checkpoint outside the Imam Moussa al-Kadhim shrine in Kadhimiya, a mainly Shiite area of Baghdad, as Shiites prepared for the Ashura holiday this week marking the death of Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Mohammad. …

Twenty-five people, including women and children, were killed in a blast at a taxi and bus station in the same neighborhood on December 27. …

In 2004, more than 150 Shiite pilgrims were killed in coordinated suicide strikes on shrines in Baghdad and Kerbala during the holiday, attacks which heralded the sectarian fighting that consumed Iraq over the next few years.

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Previous report on the mujahidaat

Iraq — An Emerging Threat (click and scroll down)

Farhana Ali (RAND Corporation) and Jerrold M. Post, M.D. (George Washington University) at a counterterrorism panel at the International Society of Political Psychology meeting in Paris, July 12, 2008. (Photo: Aubrey Immelman)

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Related stories

Video

3 blasts kill at least 20 in Iraq (MSNBC, Nov. 24, 2008) — At least 20 people are dead after three separate bomb attacks in Baghdad. (00:27)

Three Baghdad blasts kill at least 20 (Nov. 24, 2008)

Iraqi mujahidaat becoming norm (Oct. 14, 2008)

Woman suicide bomber kills 26 in Iraq (Aug. 14, 2008)

Three female suicide bombers kill 32, wound 100 (July 28, 2008)

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Security Developments in Iraq

Following are security developments in Iraq on Jan. 3, 2009, as reported by Reuters.

BAGHDAD – Two people were killed and 10 were wounded when a roadside bomb exploded near a minibus full of pilgrims headed for the holy city of Karbala for a Shi’ite holiday next week, police said. The attack took place in the Zaafaraniya district of southeastern Baghdad.

KIRKUK – Unknown gunmen in Kirkuk stormed the home of Anwar Mohedin Rasoul, a member of the Kurdistan Communist Party, and shot him dead, police said. It is not the first death of a communist party member in the ethnically mixed city of Kirkuk, which is 155 miles north of Baghdad.

SINJAR – A bomb stuck to a vehicle killed two civilians and wounded another in Sinjar, 240 miles northwest of Baghdad, police said.

MOSUL – Gunmen killed a policeman in a drive-by shooting in central Mosul, 240 miles north of Baghdad, police said.

GARMA – Iraqi police captured four militants who burned two schools being prepared as polling stations for the upcoming provincial elections in Garma, 30 km 20 miles northwest of Baghdad, police said. Iraqi police and U.S. forces sealed off the area afterwards to search for more gunmen.

Latest News & Video of the Conflict in Gaza from CNN

Iraq: Key Figures Since the War Began

January 2, 2009

U.S. Troop Levels

• October 2007: 170,000 at peak of troop buildup
• December 2008: 145,000

Casualties

• Confirmed U.S. military deaths as of Jan. 2, 2009: At least 4,219
• Confirmed U.S. military wounded (hostile) as of Dec. 31, 2008: 30,920
• Confirmed U.S. military wounded (non-hostile, using medical air transport) as of Dec. 6, 2008: 35,141
• Deaths of civilian employees of U.S. government contractors as of Sept. 30, 2008: 1,264
• Iraqi deaths in December 2008 from war-related violence: 393, up from November 2008, which at 360 was the lowest number of civilian casualties reported in one month since the AP began tracking them in May 2005
• Assassinated Iraqi academics as of Dec. 21, 2008: 410
• Journalists killed on assignment as of Jan. 2, 2009: 136

Cost

• Nearly Nearly $585 billion so far, according to the National Priorities Project

Oil Production

• Prewar: 2.58 million barrels per day
• Dec. 14, 2008: 2.40 million barrels per day

Refugees

• Nov. 27, 2008: At least 2.4 million people currently displaced inside Iraq
• Nov. 25, 2008: Close to 2 million emigrants, mainly in Syria and Jordan (Prewar: 500,000 Iraqis living abroad)