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Iraq
Shiite Muslims attend a mourning ceremony at the start of the month of Muharram leading up to the mourning day of Ashura in Nasiriyah on August 10, 2021. Photo: Asaad Niazi/AFP
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) seized explosives found in an Islamic State (ISIS) hideout north of Baghdad on Wednesday. Authorities suspect ISIS was planning to attack Shiite rituals during the holy month of Muharram.
The PMF in cooperation with Iraqi forces, Iraqi intelligence, and Baghdad operations command raided an ISIS hideout in al-Zidan neighborhood north of Baghdad, Iraqi state media reported late Wednesday night.
The operation was conducted based on intelligence obtained from an ISIS suspect arrested earlier who had worked with the group in southern Baghdad, according to a statement from PMF.
“Suicide belts and sticky bombs were seized in the secret storage that the ISIS terrorists were planning to use in the month of Muharram against al-Husseiniya rituals,” the statement read.
The raid happened a week before Ashura, when Iraq’s Shiite mosques fill up with Muslims from around the world.
Ashura is the tenth day of Muharram, the first month of the Islamic year. It commemorates the death of Imam Hussein, a Shiite leader and the grandson of the Prophet Mohammed, who was killed in a battle fought at Karbala in 680 AD. The pilgrimage and rituals go on for forty days with the day of Ashura the most crowded.
Millions of Shiite Muslims from across the world visit Iraq and the city of Karbala to mourn Hussein’s death and visit his resting place. Pilgrims dressed in black march through the streets of the city, some beating themselves sometimes with chains and wood.
The office of the top Shiite authority in Iraq Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani earlier this week marked Tuesday as the first day of the Islamic new year this year, making August 19 the day of Ashura.
The PMF in cooperation with Iraqi forces, Iraqi intelligence, and Baghdad operations command raided an ISIS hideout in al-Zidan neighborhood north of Baghdad, Iraqi state media reported late Wednesday night.
The operation was conducted based on intelligence obtained from an ISIS suspect arrested earlier who had worked with the group in southern Baghdad, according to a statement from PMF.
“Suicide belts and sticky bombs were seized in the secret storage that the ISIS terrorists were planning to use in the month of Muharram against al-Husseiniya rituals,” the statement read.
The raid happened a week before Ashura, when Iraq’s Shiite mosques fill up with Muslims from around the world.
Ashura is the tenth day of Muharram, the first month of the Islamic year. It commemorates the death of Imam Hussein, a Shiite leader and the grandson of the Prophet Mohammed, who was killed in a battle fought at Karbala in 680 AD. The pilgrimage and rituals go on for forty days with the day of Ashura the most crowded.
Millions of Shiite Muslims from across the world visit Iraq and the city of Karbala to mourn Hussein’s death and visit his resting place. Pilgrims dressed in black march through the streets of the city, some beating themselves sometimes with chains and wood.
The office of the top Shiite authority in Iraq Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani earlier this week marked Tuesday as the first day of the Islamic new year this year, making August 19 the day of Ashura.
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