Attacks on pilgrims kill at least 30 in Iraq

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Marching under blood-spattered banners, mourners carried coffins Wednesday through streets still littered with pieces of flesh and debris, as the death toll from three consecutive days of attacks on Shiite Muslim pilgrims climbed to 188.

At least 30 people were killed in fresh attacks Wednesday on some of the more than 1 million pilgrims streaming to the holy city of Karbala for weekend rites commemorating the death of Imam Hussein, grandson of the prophet Muhammad and one of Shiite Islam’s holiest figures.

Overwhelmed health officials said a lack of blood, medicine and ambulances contributed to the escalating toll.

The persistent attacks on Shiite Muslims came despite a major U.S. and Iraqi crackdown in Baghdad, which officials believe has contributed to a drop in nightly execution-style killings blamed mostly on Shiite militiamen.

In Balad Ruz, a religiously mixed town northeast of the capital, a suicide bomber walked into a cafe frequented by members of the ethnic Kurdish minority and blew himself up before dusk Wednesday, police said. At least 26 people were killed and 30 injured in the blast.

Three U.S. soldiers were killed and another injured when a bomb exploded during efforts to clear a road of explosives northwest of the capital, the military said. The deaths lifted the number of U.S. personnel killed in the war to 3,188, according to the Web site icasualties.org, which tracks casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In Baghdad, a car bomb exploded at a checkpoint set up to protect pilgrims along a busy southern highway, killing 22 people, 12 of them police, a U.S. military statement said. Another bomb and scattered shootings directed at pilgrims killed eight more people, police said.