Eight people have died today after three bombs ripped through a sprawling Baghdad market at the beginning of a Muslim festival.

More than two million Muslim pilgrims made the climactic ascent to Mount Arafat, Islam’s most sacred site, today to pray for salvation, and Saudi Arabia’s top cleric called for Islamic unity in the face of what he called the West’s war on Islam.

SOME 2.5 million Muslims took part in the Stoning of Satan ritual, as the Islamic world marked the Eid al-Adha feast of sacrifice following the annual hajj pilgrimage to Mecca.