http://www.pakistantimes.net/pt/detail.php?newsId=2697
Thursday, July 23, 2009 Rajab 28, 1430 AH Gunmen kill five Iranian pilgrims in Iraq 'Pakistan Times' Wire Service BAQUBA: Gunmen shot dead five Iranian pilgrims - including a woman - in an attack on a minibus near the restive Iraqi city of Baquba on Wednesday, police said. "At least five people were killed in an attack by armed men against three buses carrying Iranian pilgrims in the Nabi Wais region," a police official at the provincial security command centre said. He said the five victims were among about 30 pilgrims travelling on minibuses in the area northeast of Baquba, the capital of the province of Diyala north of the Iraqi capital. The attack came a day after 21 people were killed in a wave of attacks across Iraq on Tuesday, one of the bloodiest days since US forces pulled out of towns and cities across the country on June 30. Despite the violence, hundreds of thousands of Iranians travel to Iraq every year to visit holy shrines since the regime of Saddam Hussein was toppled in the US-led invasion of 2003. In April, 56 people were killed in a suicide bombing on a restaurant packed with Iranian pilgrims in Muqdadiyah, north of Baquba in Diyala province, which remains one of the most dangerous areas of the country. Violence had dropped markedly throughout the country in recent months, but attacks increased in the run-up to the US military pullback, with 437 Iraqis killed in June - the highest death toll in 11 months.
