Baghdad, Iraq (CNN)
Two Shiite pilgrims were killed in a roadside bombing in Baghdad on Saturday afternoon, the latest strike targeting people marking Ashura, one of the most important annual holy periods for Shiite Muslims across the globe.
Eight other people were wounded in the strike, which occurred in the New Baghdad district of southeastern Baghdad, Interior Ministry officials said.
The incident comes amid a large troop presence...to protect Shiite pilgrims from attacks.
Hundreds of thousands of the pilgrims are expected in Baghdad and Karbala for the commemoration, which reaches its peak over the next 24 hours.
The period commemorates the martyrdom of Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Mohammed who was killed in battle in Karbala in 680, one of the events that helped create the schism between Sunnis and Shiites, the two main Muslim religious movements.
From Saturday evening until Sunday in Karbala and Baghdad, Shiite pilgrims will be chanting, beating their breasts in penance, cutting themselves with daggers or swords and whipping themselves in synchronized moves until next morning.
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Thisdayonline.com
The young man, who yesterday night attempted to ignite an explosive device aboard a North-West Airlines flight going from Amsterdam to Detroit, Michigan in the United States has been identified as Abdul Farouk Umar Abdulmutallab, the 23-year-old son of Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, former First Bank chairman, who just retired from the bank's board a fortnight ago.
The older Mutallab... was said to have noticed the extreme nature of the boy's religious belief and has taken several measures to tame him.
The suspect, Abdulfarouk Muttalab who is an engineering student at the University College, London had been noted for his extreme views on religion since his secondary school days at the British International School, Lome, Togo.
At the secondary school, he was known for preaching about Islam to his school mates and he qwas popularly called ëAlfaí , a local coinage for Islamic scholar. After his secondary school, the young man, family sources said, once relocated to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates from where he declared to his family members that he did not want to have anything to do with any of them again.
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AFP news: PESHAWAR, Pakistan — A suicide bomber targeted a security checkpoint in Pakistan's Peshawar on Thursday, killing four people in the second such attack in as many days in the flashpoint northwestern city.
Attacks are escalating in the city of 2.5 million people on the edge of Pakistan's tribal belt on the Afghan border, an area Washington brands the most dangerous place on Earth and the chief sanctuary of Al-Qaeda.
The bomber targeted a checkpoint in the army cantonment, blowing himself up on one of Peshawar's busiest areas, outside a government office and a church, where Pakistan's Christian minority were preparing to celebrate Christmas.
...
Peshawar's is on the frontline of Pakistan's two and a half year campaign of suicide and bomb attacks waged by Islamist militants who have carved out havens in the northwest and who oppose Islamabad's alliance with the United States.
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