The New Nation - Internet Edition

AP, Baghdad

Three suicide bombers and a roadside bomb struck Shiite pilgrims taking part in a massive religious procession in Baghdad on Monday, killing at least 57 people and wounding 92, police said.

The attacks occurred in quick succession as tens of thousands of Shiite worshippers streamed toward a shrine in northern Baghdad for an annual event marking the death of an eighth-century saint. The event climaxes on Tuesday.

Police said there were indications that the suicide bombers were women. At least two children were among the dead, said police officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

The attacks took place in the mainly Shiite Karradah district, which is several miles away from the site of the pilgrimage in Kazimiyah, northern Baghdad. The majority of the dead were women and children, police and health officials said.

Mustapha Abdullah, a 32-year-old man who was injured in the stomach and legs, said the blasts took place when pilgrims from Baghdad's predominantly Shiite neighborhood of Zaafaraniyah reached the district's Kahramanah Square.

"I heard women and children crying and shouting and I saw burned women as dead bodies lay in pools of blood on the street," said Abdullah, speaking at the hospital where he was being treated.

Insurgents have increasingly been using women this year to stage suicide bombings in a bid to avoid security measures. Women are more easily able to hide explosives under their all-encompassing black Islamic robes, or abayas, and they often are not searched at checkpoints.

Security forces have deployed about 200 women volunteers this week to search female pilgrims near the Baghdad district of Kazimiyah, where the Shiite saint is buried in a golden domed shrine.

On Sunday, at least seven pilgrims were killed south of Baghdad in an ambush by gunmen near a Sunni town, Madain, south of the capital.

The marchers were commemorating the death in 799 A.D. of Imam Moussa ibn Jaafar al-Kadhim, one of the 12 principle Shiite imams.

Since the 2003 ouster of Saddam Hussein, who was a Sunni, Shiite political parties have encouraged huge turnouts at religious festivals to display the majority sect's power in Iraq. Sunni religious extremists have often targeted the gatherings to foment sectarian war, but that has not stopped the Shiites.

In 2005, at least 1,000 people were killed in a bridge stampede caused by rumors of a suicide bomber in Baghdad during the Kazimiyah pilgrimage.

But recent pilgrimages have been relatively peaceful as a U.S. troop buildup, a Sunni revolt against al-Qaida in Iraq and a Shiite militia cease-fire helped drive violence down to its lowest level in more than four years.

Sunday's ambush occurred in a former al-Qaida in Iraq stronghold that has been touted by the U.S. military as a success story with its streets now patrolled by U.S.-allied Sunni groups known as Awakening Councils.

The main Iraqi military spokesman in Baghdad, Brig. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, on Sunday said 100,000 Iraqi security forces will be deployed along with U.S. reinforcements and air support to protect the ceremonies in kazimiyah.

Vehicles have been banned from the area and most Baghdad bridges would be closed to traffic, al-Moussawi said, adding that pilgrims were banned from carrying weapons or cell phones - rules that have been widely flouted in the past.

The Kazimiyah ceremonies have in the past attracted around 1 million pilgrims. They have often been chaotic, with the task of protecting the pilgrims stretching police resources.