15 People Are Killed Across Iraq on Shiite Religious Holiday

By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. and QAIS MIZHER [New York TImes]

BAGHDAD [Iraq] -- A rocket attack and several bombings killed at least
15 people in central and northern Iraq on Saturday [January 19, 2008],
Iraqi officials said.

Go to Complete Coverage Sporadic violence continued in the southern
cities of Basra and Nasiriya as millions of Shiites turned out for the
climax of Ashura, the religious holiday marking the killing 13
centuries ago of Imam Hussein, a grandson of the Prophet Muhammad.

A rocket attack killed seven people and wounded 20 in Tal Afar [Iraq],
a northern city. The attack marred an otherwise uneventful Ashura
celebration, said Maj. Gen. Najim Abdullah, the mayor of Tal Afar.

Ramadi, the provincial capital of Anbar Province [Iraq], suffered some
of its worst violence in months when three suicide car bombers
attacked a police station just outside the city. Five policemen were
killed and seven were wounded, Lt. Col. Thamir Ali Suleiman said.

A Marine Corps spokesman in nearby Falluja said there was a report of
a suicide attack late Saturday afternoon about five miles from Ramadi,
but further details were not immediately available.

Two Shiites celebrating Ashura were killed in Kirkuk [Iraq], the
northern city where Kurds, Sunni Arabs and Turkmen are vying for
control. They were killed by two improvised bombs hidden in trash near
a Shiite mosque. Seven others were wounded.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/20/world/middleeast/20iraq.html?ref=world