Thousands of Shiites march to Baghdad shrine

Thousands of Shiite Muslims marched through the streets of a northern Baghdad neighbourhood today carrying 17 wooden coffins with the bodies of fellow Shiites killed while returning home from a pilgrimage to the holy city of Karbala.

The residents of Kazimiyah pounded on drums, chanted religious slogans and threw perfumed water at the coffins as they made their way to the shrine of the mostly Shiite neighbourhood.