BAGHDAD - Female bombers killed at least 57 people and wounded 280 in three attacks yesterday on Shiite pilgrims marching in Baghdad and a fourth on a Kurdish demonstration in Kirkuk.
Twenty-five people were killed in Kirkuk and 178 wounded when a woman blew herself up, police and medical sources said. At least 32 people died and 102 were wounded in Baghdad in attacks by three female bombers.
The bloodshed shattered a period that had seen a four-year low in Iraq violence. The decrease in attacks had prompted senior U.S. officials in Iraq to describe Sunni militants as a spent force no longer capable of toppling Iraq's Shiite-led government. The attacks yesterday proved a reminder of how raw Iraq's ethnic and sectarian divisions remain and showcased the ability of extremists to cause damage.
In northern Iraq, a woman detonated a suicide vest at a Kurdish demonstration in Kirkuk, where Kurdish ambitions to annex the oil-rich territory to their semiautonomous northern region have sparked the ire of the area's Arabs and Turkmen. The fight for Kirkuk has threatened to derail local elections around the country as the sides have feuded in parliament over the city's future and stalled the passage of an election law.
About 3,000 demonstrators were protesting efforts to strip the Kurds of power in Kirkuk when the bomb exploded. The blast prompted Kurdish demonstrators to attack the nearby office of the Turkmen Front, according to the party. One civilian was killed in the rioting, police said.
The bombing and ensuing melee provided a glimpse of the passions aroused by the dispute over the future boundaries of Iraq's Arab north and its Kurdistan region.
In Baghdad, three female suicide bombers blew themselves up in rapid succession yesterday morning, killing Shiite pilgrims on their way to a shrine in the capital. At least 1 million Shiites were expected in the capital for the event commemorating the death in 799 of Imam Moussa al-Kadhim, a Shiite saint believed to have been poisoned in prison by the Islamic world's caliph.
The bombings occurred in the Karrada district, a prosperous commercial area in eastern Baghdad. Shiite pilgrim Wissam Abdullah had been following a group of women dressed in billowing robes when an explosion threw him down, wounding his leg.
"The government should have prepared for such an event, as they happen repeatedly," Abdullah said at a Baghdad hospital.
