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57 killed in Iraq suicide attacks

— PHOTO: AFP

DEADLY ATTACK: Iraqi soldiers gather following a suicide bombing during a march by Iraqi Kurds protesting against a controversial provincial election law in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, some 300 km from Baghdad on Monday.

BAGHDAD: Suicide bombers struck a Shia pilgrimage in Baghdad and a Kurdish rally in northern Iraq on Monday, killing at least 57 people and wounding nearly 300, said the police.

Three women suicide bombers blew their explosive vests in the middle of pilgrims in Baghdad, moments after a roadside bomb attack, killing at least 32 people and wounding 102, said officials. In the oil-rich northern city of Kirkuk, 25 people were killed and 185 wounded when a blast tore through a crowd of Kurds protesting a provincial elections law, said officials.

The local police said remains recovered from the scene showed the attacker was a woman.

The U.S. military confirmed it was a suicide bombing, but said it had no indication that a woman was involved. The attacks were a devastating blow to Iraq’s growing confidence in recent security gains that have seen violence in Iraq drop to its lowest levels in more than four years.

A senior U.S. military official blamed Al-Qaeda for the attacks in Baghdad. The attacks come ahead of U.S. and Iraqi military operations in early August aimed at routing out militants from rural hideouts in northern Iraq and solidify recent security gains in urban areas.

“At about 8 a.m., three female suicide bombers detonated themselves among pilgrims heading to Kazimiyah,” said Iraq’s military spokesman in Baghdad, Brig. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, in a statement.

The attacks took place in the mainly Shia Karradah district, which is several km away from the destination of the pilgrimage in Kazimiyah.

Most of the dead were women and children, said the police and health officialsIt was the deadliest attack in Baghdad since June 17. — AP

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