BAGHDAD -- Five people were killed in two attacks in Iraq following violence that left more than 40 dead in the four days leading up to the end of the major Shiite Islam holiday of Ashura.
The sectarian violence, which has decreased since the peak in 2006 and 2007 and was expected to be even worse on Sunday, is typical during Ashura, which commemorates the killing of Imam Hussein (A.S), the grandson of the founder of Islam. This year, Ashura and its week and a half of ceremonial events coincided with Christmas.
Four people were killed and 28 injured Sunday morning when a roadside bomb exploded near a crowd of Shiite worshipers in the northern city of Tuz Khormato, an ethnically mixed city of Kurds, Turkmen and Arabs.
Reports had surfaced that the Iraqi minister of youth and sports, Jassim Mohammed Jafar, was targeted in the blast and his bodyguard killed. Mr. Jafar told the Aswat al-Iraq news agency that his convoy left the scene before the blast.
In Baghdad, a bomb exploded inside a minibus in the Mansour district, killing one person and injuring four others, according to sources in the Ministry of Interior.
There was no violence reported in holy Karbala.
Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims flocked to Karbala for the pinnacle of the Ashura commemoration Sunday, which saw an influx of between 25,000 and 50,000 additional Iraqi police officers, according to Interior Ministry sources.
Violence that mostly targeted Ashura pilgrims left at least 40 people dead and dozens more injured from Wednesday through Saturday throughout Iraq
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