Iraqi PM Says Security Restored in Karbala
29 August 2007
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki says order has been restored in the holy city of Karbala, where clashes killed at least 52 people and wounded more than 200 others during a major Shi'ite religious festival.
Mr. Maliki, who arrived in the southern city early Wednesday, blamed "armed criminal gangs and remnants of the former Saddam regime" for the violence.
Security officials in Karbala said the fighting Tuesday broke out when gunmen loyal to radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr fired on guards around two major shrines protected by the armed wing of the Supreme Iraqi islamic Council.
The violence forced authorities to impose an indefinite curfew on Karbala and order Shi'ite pilgrims to leave the city, cutting short a religious festival they were attending.
The festival marking the birth of Mohammed al-Mahdi, the 12th and last Shi'ite imam was to have ended Wednesday.
In other news, the U.S. military announced the death of one American soldier, who died of wounds sustained Tuesday during combat in the northern city of Kirkuk.
Also on Tuesday, the United Nations refugee agency said more than 60,000 Iraqis are becoming displaced each month - up from 50,000 a month earlier. The UNHCR says many Iraqis are fleeing because they can not get access to social services or they fear being forced out of ethnically-mixed areas.
The United States says it will take two thousand Iraqi refugees over the next few weeks and contribute $30 million to U.N. programs for educating Iraqi refugee children in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt.
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