1 Million Shiite Pilgrims Ordered Out of Karbala as Violence Kills 35

BAGHDAD — More than 1 million pilgrims were ordered to leave the Shiite holy city of Karbala yesterday, and police imposed a curfew after two days of violence — including raging gunbattles between rival militias — claimed at least 35 lives during a religious festival.Nearly 200 people were wounded, security officials said, and the government sent reinforcements from Baghdad to quell growing unrest and help clear the city.Security officials told the Associated Press that Mahdi Army gunmen, loyalists of radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, attacked guards around the two Karbala shrines that were under the protection of the Badr Brigade, the armed wing of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council. In telephone calls to reporters in Karbala, gunfire and exploding mortar shells could be heard.The security officials, who demanded anonymity for security reasons, said at least 180 people have been wounded. They include women and children.An Interior Ministry spokesman, Major General Abdul-Karim Khalaf, said “entrances and exits to Karbala have been secured and more forces are on the way from other provinces,” including Baghdad. The other officials said buses had been dispatched to Karbala to take pilgrims out of the city.Gunshots rang out yesterday in the area near the Shiite shrines, which are the focal point of celebrations marking the birthday of the 12th and last Shiite imam, who disappeared in the 9th century. The festival was to have reached its high point last night and this morning.Thirty of the dead were killed in yesterday’s fighting, five others died in an outbreak of violence Monday night pilgrims tried to push past frustratingly slow security checkpoints near the Imam al-Hussein mosque.He called the gunmen who fought police “criminals,” adding that the curfew was imposed because of fears for the pilgrims.A member of the city council said the center of town was in chaos with pilgrims running in all directions to escape the gunfire. No one, he said, was sure who was doing the shooting. He said a rocket-propelled grenade exploded near the shrine.In other news, the top American envoy on refugees announced yesterday that America would increase its support to countries hosting Iraqi refugees with a $30 million grant for education.Assistant Secretary of State Ellen Sauerbrey said the money will help pay for schooling in countries like Jordan, where tens of thousands of young Iraqis recently began attending government schools. Jordan and Syria host the largest percentage of the more than 2 million Iraqis who have been displaced by the war and they have complained of the increasing burden on their health and education systems.

1 Million Shiite Pilgrims Ordered Out of Karbala as Violence Kills 35

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