- On December 27, 2003, four coordinated suicide car bombers hit the Holy
Shiite city of Karbala, 60 miles south of Baghdad. Five Bulgarian and two
Thai soldiers were killed. In addition 12 Iraqis also died and 172 people
were wounded including 5 American and between 25 and 37 coalition soldiers.
Both countries said that they will not pull out of Iraq and Thailand said
that they would send 30 more soldiers. A US military logistics camp, a base
housing a Thai hospital and the city government centre were hit. While cars
loaded with explosives were driven towards the targets other guerrillas
used mortars and machine guns. The Bulgarian compound was so destroyed that
the 500 soldiers there had to be moved somewhere else.
- On May 7, 2004, followers of Moqtada al-Sadr fought with US soldiers in
the streets of the holy city of Kerbala. This followed the news that a cleric
offered a £100 reward to anybody who captured a British female soldier
to use as sex slave (would it be a direct consequence of the Abu Ghraib
pictures shown these last few days detailing US and British behaviour with
prisoners?) Capturing a US or British male soldier would be worth a £39
reward only. Moqtada al-Sadr went to Kufa to give a speech. In it he asked
"what can we expect from you, Americans, when you take such joy to
torture Iraqi prisoners?
- On May 12, 2004, the radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr said that he
was ready to disband his militia, the Jaish al-Mahdi, although he still
opposed strongly the US occupation. On the same day, he lost about 25 men
in a street battle with US soldiers in Kerbala. There is a plan for his
fighters could join a national security force that would control security
in Najaf and Kerbala allowing the American soldiers to move out of the cities.
- On May 21, 2004, heavy fighting went on again in the holy city of Kerbala
with aircrafts involved.
- On December 15, 2004, a bomb exploded at the gate of a Shiite Muslim shrine
in Karbala killing at least nine people and wounding more than forty. The
main target was Sheik Abdul Mahdi al-Kkarbalaee, a representative of Grand
Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani and a candidate on the Shiite list
for the elections. Kkarbalaee was badly hurt but he should live. Two of
his bodyguards are among the nine dead.
- On December 19, 2004, there were bomb attacks in the Iraqi cities of Najaf
and Karbala killing at least 60 people and wounding more that 120. This
was the second worst daily death toll from insurgents since the Iraqi interim
took control six months ago. The worst death toll was on July 28 when 68
people were killed. The Shiite clerics in Najaf and Karbala blamed the attacks
on Sunni extremists trying to start a civil war between the two Muslim sects.
- Iraqi security forces are on alert in the city of Karbala on September
19, 2005, as hundreds of thousands of Shia pilgrims gather for a major religious
festival. Thousands of police and troops are on duty and soldiers from the
US-led coalition are taking up positions outside the city, south of Baghdad.
Cars have been banned from the city, to reduce the risk of bombings, and
pilgrims are being searched. The festival marks the birth of a revered Shia
leader, Imam Mehdi. There are fears that Sunni insurgents who are trying
to invoke civil war in the country may attack the festival.
- Tens of thousands of Shia Muslim pilgrims have taken part on September 9, 2006, in a religious festival in the Iraqi city of Kerbala amid tight security. Thousands of police and soldiers were deployed to guard sites and deter possible attackers. No major security incident was reported. Up to three million pilgrims had been expected during events marking the birth of the Ninth Century Imam Mahdi. Sunni insurgents have targeted such festivals in the past.
- Millions of Shiites flooded the Iraqi shrine city of Karbala for the peak of Ashura rituals on Sunday November 25, 2012, which have been largely spared the deadly attacks which struck pilgrims in past years. Throngs of pilgrims beat their chests and some used swords to make cuts on their heads as a sign of mourning for Imam Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Mohammed who was killed in 680 AD by the armies of the caliph Yazid. Tradition holds that the revered imam was decapitated and his body mutilated. Hussein's body is buried in the holy city and his death has become a formative event in Shiite Islam. A man told black-clad pilgrims, many of them in tears, the story of the battle in which Hussein was killed, over loudspeakers near the shrine where he is buried. About three million pilgrims, including 200,000 from foreign countries, have come to Karbala for the rituals.