Insurgents target Shiite celebrants on holy day

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Five suicide bombers, including one on a bicycle, hurled themselves into crowds and set off explosives yesterday, killing 55 people and wounding 150 in a wave of mayhem intended to disrupt Ashoura, the holiest day in Shiite Islam.

The attacks came on a day of huge and often delirious celebrations around the country by tens of thousands of Iraqi Shiites, marking the seventh-century martyrdom of the prophet Muhammad's grandson Hussein.

The celebrations, banned during the time of Saddam Hussein, are a symbol of the religious and political resurgence of the Shiites, a long-suppressed majority now poised to take political power for the first time. That resurgence was codified by the victory in nationwide elections on Jan. 30.

The coming political dominance of the Shiites is viewed by many Sunni Arabs here as a direct threat to their power, which was buttressed by Saddam. The attacks, thought to be carried out by Sunni Muslim insurgents, are believed to be aimed at sparking a civil war between the two sects.

In two of the attacks yesterday, officials said the bombers were probably Sudanese nationals. Witnesses at both scenes said the bombers were dark-skinned men. It was not clear how the officials determined the exact nationality of the men; Iraq has a large community of Sudanese, most of them Sunni Muslims, who were brought here as guest workers during Saddam's rule.

In the single deadliest incident, a suicide bomber who had climbed aboard a yellow American-made school bus set off his explosives at a checkpoint near the al-Khadimain shrine in northern Baghdad, killing at least five Iraqis and wounding 46. The explosion came while the bus was halted at a checkpoint, which prevented the vehicle from approaching a huge street celebration outside the shrine.

Also yesterday, a U.S. Marine was killed in action in Iraq's western Al Anbar province, the U.S. military said today, according to Reuters news service.

In another attack aimed at Shiite devotees, a man wearing an explosive vest blew himself up as he entered a procession near Al Nida mosque in the Dhubat neighborhood of northern Baghdad. The bomb killed at least three people and wounded 55.

In Baqouba, north of Baghdad, a suicide bomber detonated a white Chevrolet Caprice full of explosives at an Iraqi army building, killing four people, including three civilians. In a posting on an Islamist Web site, a group claiming to be led by the militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi said that one of its "martyrs" had carried out the attack.

It was al-Zarqawi who, in a letter captured by Kurdish forces last year, called on his followers to launch a sectarian war against Iraqi Shiites in hopes of provoking an all-out civil war. Al-Zarqawi's group is believed responsible for a wave of bombings at Ashoura last year that killed more than 170 people.

In a fifth suicide attack, a suicide bomber rode a bicycle into a tent full of mourners at a funeral in southwest Baghdad, killing three people and wounding 55. Unlike the other attacks, which were carried out against Shiites, the bomber struck a crowd of Sunnis.

The fact was not lost on the survivors, who lay bandaged and bleeding inside Yarmouk Hospital.

"He was an idiot," said Um Seif, a 37-year-old housewife, who lay bandaged in a bed. "It was a Sunni funeral, not a Shia one."

The Sunni insurgents have used several means to deliver bombs, putting them in cars, hiding them under men's clothing and even concealing them inside dead animals. Yesterday appeared to be the first time a suicide bomber had used a bicycle.

For all of the day's carnage, it was significantly less than the same holiday a year ago. Part of the reason for the lower tolls may have been heightened security.

Last year, a pair of suicide bombers killed more than 70 people at the al-Khadimain shrine. But this year, Iraqi police officers and U.S. and Iraqi soldiers sealed off the area, stopping and searching cars and people who tried to come close. The suicide bomber in the yellow school bus, for instance, blew himself up after the vehicle was stopped on a checkpoint on the way to the shrine.

The scene in Karbala and in al-Khadimain mosque was frenzied but peaceful, with tens of thousands of pilgrims marching, chanting and striking their foreheads with swords. Many of the pilgrims, wearing the traditional white robes, were covered in their own blood, crying out in ecstasy to their fallen martyr, Hussein.

The processions are meant to commemorate the death of Hussein, who was killed near Karbala in 680 A.D. in a battle with troops loyal to the Umaayyad caliphate. Hussein's death lies at the heart of Islam's historic rift between Sunnis and Shiites, with the Shiites regarding Hussein's death and suffering as a redemptive act.

In the face of the continuing violence, a group of U.S. senators visiting Iraq said they had been encouraged by the recent elections and by signs that the Iraqis were beginning to take responsibility for governing themselves and defending their government.

In a news conference, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., said the bombings against religious sites, such as those that occurred yesterday, were a measure of the insurgency's failure.

"The desperation of the so-called insurgency is becoming clearer by the day," she said.

While some of the senators in attendance stressed the need for the U.S. to stay in Iraq for as long as was necessary, the leader of the delegation, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said that ultimately the factor that would most likely determine whether America would stay in Iraqi was the number of U.S. casualties.

Death toll is from The Associated Press.