People gather at the scene of a bomb attack in Sadr City eastern of Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, Jan. 5, 2012. A wave of explosions struck two Shiite neighborhoods on Thursday, killing and injuring dozens of Iraqis, police said, and intensifying fears that insurgents are stepping up attacks after the U.S. troop withdrawal that was completed last month. Photo: Karim Kadim / AP

BAGHDAD (AP) — A wave of bombings targeting Shiites in Iraq killed 72 people on Thursday, deepening sectarian tensions that exploded just after the last American troops left the country in mid-December.

The coordinated attacks targeting Shiites bore the hallmarks of Sunni insurgents linked to al-Qaida, although there was no immediate claim of responsibility.

The bombings began early in the morning when explosions struck two Shiite neighborhoods in Baghdad, killing at least 27 people. A few hours later, a suicide attack hit Shiite pilgrims heading to the holy Shiite city of Karbala, killing 45, said provincial official Quosay al-Abadi. The explosions took place near Nasiriyah, about 200 miles (320 kilometers) southeast of Baghdad. Hospital officials confirmed the causalities.
The blasts occurred in the run-up to Arbaeen, a Shiite holy day which marks the end of 40 days of mourning that follow the anniversary of the death of Imam Hussein, a revered Shiite figure. During this time, Shiite pilgrims from across Iraq make their way to Karbala, south of Baghdad.

Baghdad military spokesman Maj. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi said the aim of the attacks is "to create turmoil among the Iraqi people." He said it was too early to say who was behind the bombings.

The new violence will only exacerbate the country's political crisis pitting politicians from the Shiite majority who dominate the government against the Sunni minority, which reigned supreme under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein.

Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government issued an arrest warrant for the country's top Sunni politician last month. The Sunni official, Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi, is holed up in Iraq's semiautonomous Kurdish region in the north — effectively out of reach of state security forces.
Fears have already been running high that the sectarian tensions could re-ignite Shiite-Sunni warfare that just a few years ago pushed Iraq to the brink of civil war.

The attacks began in Baghdad with the explosion of a bomb attached to a motorcycle near a bus stop where day laborers gather to look for work in the Shiite Sadr City neighborhood. One of those who witnessed the attack said it filled the area with thick black smoke.

"People have real fears that the cycle of violence might be revived in this country," said Tariq Annad, a 52-year-old government employee who lives nearby.

That attack was followed by the explosion of a roadside bomb. Police found a third bomb nearby and defused it.
The two Sadr City blasts killed 12 people, according to police and medical officials.

Less than two hours later, two explosions rocked the Shiite neighborhood of Kazimiyah in the north of the capital, killing 15 people.
Officials said the Kazimiyah blasts occurred almost simultaneously, with at least one caused by a car bomb. Simultaneous explosions are a tactic frequently used by the Sunni insurgents against Shiites.

Hospital officials confirmed the causalities from the four blasts, which included more than 60 wounded.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.

The attacks were the deadliest in Baghdad since Dec. 22, when a series of blasts killed 69 people in mostly Shiite neighborhoods. An al-Qaida front group in Iraq claimed responsibility for those attacks.

The last U.S. soldiers left Iraq on Dec. 18, ending a nearly nine-year war. Iraqi leaders feared a resurgence of Sunni and Shiite militants and an increase in violence following the departure of U.S. troops, a fear that is coming to be realized.

On Wednesday, attacks targeted the homes of police officers and a member of a government-allied militia. Those attacks, in the cities of Baqouba and Abu Ghraib outside Baghdad, killed four people, including two children, officials said.

Iraqi politicians remain deadlocked in a festering political crisis that threatens to re-ignite simmering sectarian tensions in the country.
Al-Maliki's main political rival, the Sunni-backed Iraqiya bloc, is boycotting parliament sessions and Cabinet meetings to protest what they say are efforts by the government to consolidate power and marginalize them.
___


Read more: http://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/Attacks-targeting-Shiites-kill-72-in-Iraq-2442917.php#ixzz1iay5WWm7

And these are the people who ask us to follow their role model

frosbel:

And these are the people who ask us to follow their role model

you know i dont honor these your threads talking about shia killing because they are meant to drift attention away from religious topics.

this topic should not even be in a religion forum.this is a political topic.i dont know what you think is religious about criminals killing Shia Muslim pilgrims in Iraq or elsewhere.

so dont gamble too much.you wont get another reply even though you begged for it here:

https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-839619.0.html

Jan 6, 10:19 AM EST

Police: 20 killed in northeast Nigeria shooting

By NJADVARA MUSA and JON GAMBRELL
Associated Press

World Video



MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (AP) -- Suspected gunmen from a radical Muslim sect attacked a town hall Friday in rural northeast Nigeria, killing at least 20 people who had gathered for a meeting of a Christian ethnic group, police said.

The attack at noon targeted a town hall where Christian Igbo people were holding a meeting, with gunmen chanting "God is great" as they fired Kalashnikov rifles.

The killings come after a spokesman for the sect known as Boko Haram threatened to begin specifically targeting Christians living in the country's Muslim north in its increasingly bloody sectarian fight with Nigeria's weak central government. That could further inflame religious tensions in an uneasy nation already gripped by civil unrest.

The attack occurred in Mubi in Adamawa state as Igbo traders held a meeting before opening up their shops for business, local police commissioner Ade T. Shinaba said.

"We started hearing many gunshots through the windows," said Okey Raymond, 48, who attended the meeting. "Everyone scampered for safety, but the gunmen chanted: [b]'God is great God is great' [/b]while shooting at us."

Raymond said he hid under a table and escaped out a back door. The gunmen also carried knives and machetes, the police commissioner said.

No arrests have been made in the attack, which left at least another 15 people wounded.

Friday's attack comes after gunmen attacked a church in the northeast Nigeria city of Gombe during a prayer service Thursday night, spraying the congregation with gunfire and killing at least six people including the pastor's wife. No one has claimed responsibility for that attack, though Boko Haram has targeted churches in the past in its campaign to implement strict Shariah law across Nigeria.

Boko Haram, whose name means "Western education is sacrilege" in the local Hausa language, is responsible for at least 510 killings last year alone, according to an Associated Press count.

The group claimed responsibility for an attack that killed at least 42 people in a Christmas Day bombing of a Catholic church near Abuja, as well as a suicide car bombing targeting the U.N. headquarters in the capital that killed 25 people and wounded more than 100.

Nigeria's weak central government has been slow to respond to the sect. On Dec. 31, President Goodluck Jonathan declared regions of Borno, Niger, Plateau and Yobe states to be under a state of emergency - meaning authorities can make arrests without proof and conduct searches without warrants. He also ordered international borders near Borno and Yobe state to be closed.

However, the areas where the recent church and town hall attacks happened are not in the areas marked by the president.

The attack also comes after a spokesman for Boko Haram told The Daily Trust newspaper, northern Nigeria's paper of record, that the group would begin targeting Christians living in Nigeria's Muslim north.

Igbo traders, who belong to one of the country's three dominant ethnic groups, do business and live across Nigeria's north though the Igbo traditionally have lived in the country's southeast.

---

Jon Gambrell reported from Lagos, Nigeria and can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AF_NIGERIA_VIOLENCE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT