Double Iraq bombings kill 40

Bombs tore through a Shiite pilgrimage in Baghdad and a Kurdish rally in northern Iraq today killing at least 40 people and wounding scores more.

At least two of the attackers were apparently female suicide bombers.

The attacks were a devastating blow to growing confidence among the Iraqi public in recent security gains that have seen the level of violence drop to its lowest in more than four years.

The violence began in Baghdad, when a roadside bomb and three suicide attackers exploded in quick succession among crowds of Shiite pilgrims, killing at least 28 people and wounding 92.

The attacks occurred as tens of thousands of worshippers streamed toward a shrine for an annual event marking the death of an eighth century saint.

A senior US military official blamed al-Qaida for the attacks in Baghdad and said two of the bombers were believed to have been women.

In a separate attack, a bomb killed at least 12 people and wounded 80 others at a Kurdish rally in the northern city of Kirkuk.

They were protesting over a proposed provincial elections law which has been blocked in parliament because of disagreement over a power-sharing formula in the disputed city of Kirkuk, an oil-rich area.

Police also found a car bomb nearby and destroyed it without causing casualties after evacuating the area.

The attacks in Baghdad took place in the mainly Shiite Karradah district, which is several miles away from the goal of the pilgrimage in Kazimiyah, northern Baghdad.

Most of the dead were women and children, police and health officials said.

It was the deadliest attack in Baghdad since June 17, when a lorry bombing killed 63 people in Hurriyah, a Baghdad district that saw some of the worst Shiite-Sunni slaughter in 2006.

Insurgents have increasingly been using women this year to stage suicide bombings in a bid to avoid security measures. Women are more easily able to hide explosives under their all-encompassing black Islamic robes and they often are not searched at checkpoints.

But security forces have deployed about 200 women security personnel this week to search female pilgrims near the Baghdad district of Kazimiyah, where the Shiite saint is buried in a golden domed shrine.

Since the fall of Saddam Hussein, who was a Sunni, Shiite political parties have encouraged huge turnouts at religious festivals to display the majority sect’s power in Iraq. Sunni religious extremists have often targeted the gatherings to foment sectarian war, but that has not stopped the Shiites.

In 2005, at least 1,000 people also were killed in a bridge stampede caused by rumours of a suicide bomber in Baghdad during the Kazimiyah pilgrimage.

But recent pilgrimages have been relatively peaceful as a US troop buildup, a Sunni revolt against al-Qaida and a Shiite militia cease-fire helped drive violence down to its lowest level in more than four years.