Neo-Salafi Bomber Kills Many Maliki Allies.

Over 25 tribal Arab leaders meeting at the house of senior Sunni tribal Shaikh Muhammad 'Abdullah Saleh al-Qaraghuli to discuss national reconciliation efforts and backing PM Maliki's ICs on Jan. 2 were killed and 42 were wounded as a member of the tribe working with al-Qaeda detonated an explosive vest. Fatality reports for the gathering of about 1,000 members of the Qaraghul Tribe ranged as high as 30 killed and 110 wounded.

The bombing occurred in the town of Yusufiya, 40 km south-west of Baghdad in an area once called the Triangle of Death because it had been at the centre of the Neo-Salafi insurgency against US forces. But violence in Yusufiya decreased in the past year-and-a-half as tribal AC forces turned against al-Qaeda and began to support the US military and the government. But some of the town's areas had never been free of the influence of Qaeda militants, who have sought to recruit tribal members back to the insurgency with gifts of money and cars.

The Qaraghul Tribe includes Sunnis, Shi'ites and Kurds. Some of those in attendance at the house of Shaikh Qaraghuli were former Sunni insurgents who had become leaders of ACs and of Maliki's ICs. As the meeting was breaking up, one of the tribe's members, Ahmad 'Edan Hasoon, 59, entered the yard without being searched by security guards. Moments later, he detonated an explosive vest he was wearing. Abu Khaled, 33, a teacher and tribal leader who had gone to wash his hands when the bomb went off, was later quoted as saying: "I heard a horrible and shocking explosion and there were people who had been standing in the yard and suddenly, no one was standing - they were on the ground. Blood was everywhere. Arms and legs were all over the place".

At Yarmouk Hospital the sound of sobbing men and women filled the corridors as the wounded were being treated. Police officers set up multiple check-points outside the hospital to search visitors before they were allowed to enter. Shaikh Khaled 'Abdullah Saleh al-Qaraghuli, a brother of the leading shaikh who acted as host of the gathering, was hit by shrapnel in his left side, his left arm and his left leg. His elder brother suffered only minor injuries. (Also on Jan. 2, armed men fatally shot three AC members at a security check-point in the mostly Shi'ite city of Hilla, 100 km south of Baghdad; six were wounded).

Over 40, 16 them Iranian pilgrims, on Jan. 4 were killed and 72 were wounded in a Qaeda suicide bombing at the doorstep of one of Iraq's holiest Shi'ite shrines in north Baghdad's Kathemiya area. The attacker singled out a procession of Iranian pilgrims visiting the shrine of Imams Musa al-Kathem and Muhammad al-Jawad. Earlier in the day, a bus carrying Iranian pilgrims to Kathemiya was hit by a blast from a roadside bomb in Diyala Province in the north-east bordering Iran. Shi'ites have often been attacked by Neo-Salafis on religious holidays.

The holiest month of the Shi'ite calendar, Muharram, began on Dec. 29; and its climax, the 10th Day of 'Ashura' on Jan. 7, will mark the martyrdom of the third of the sect's 12 partly "divine" imams, Hussein ibn-'Ali (grand-son of the Prophet Muhammad), in a 680 AD battle with Sunni forces in Karbala'. The 10th Day of 'Ashura' is marked with fervent prayers and laments, pageantries recreating the battle of Karbala' and rituals of chest-beating and self-flagellation with chains. Each year, the government mobilises large numbers of troops and imposes strict measures to protect Muharram rituals from attacks. This year was no exception. Kathemiya and other shrine sites have been completely cut off to vehicle traffic for miles, and pilgrims face several security checks before they reach the shrine.

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