Baghdad: A roadside bomb wounded four Shiites on their way to prayer Friday morning in an attack that police said targeted pilgrims headed for a religious ceremony this week at a northern Baghdad shrine.
Police officials said the wounded were from a southern Iraqi province and were going to Baghdad's Kazimiyah neighborhood, where Shiite pilgrims are beginning to gather for the July 7 anniversary of the death of the seventh imam.
Massive religious processions of Iraq's majority Shiite sect have often been targeted by suspected Sunni insurgents in the past years of sectarian bloodshed that had the nation teetering on the brink of civil war in 2005 to 2007.
Hundreds of thousands of Shiites from around Iraq are expected to turn out in the coming days in Baghdad for ceremonies marking the eight-century death of Imam Moussa Al Kadhim.
Pilgrims traditionally walk to the twin-domed shrine in Kazimiyah, where the revered saint is buried.
