A suicide bomber detonated a belt of explosives near a highly-revered Shiite shrine in southern Iraq today, killing at least 33 people and injuring 108.

Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim had just delivered a sermon calling for Iraqi unity and Friday prayers were under way at Iraq’s holiest Shiite shrine when a car bomb exploded.

On his return to Iraq following Saddam Hussein’s fall from power, Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim was hailed as Iraq’s version of Ruhollah Khomeini, the Iranian Shiite leader who led his country’s 1979 Islamic revolution.