Karbala Shrine Blasts Blamed on Suicide Bombers

KARBALA, Iraq —  Investigators probing the bombings that struck this city last week during a Shiite Muslim religious festival, killing more than 100 people, have determined that the blasts were set off by nine suicide attackers wearing belts rigged with explosives, Iraqi police said Tuesday.

Iraqi and U.S. officials previously attributed the March 2 blasts to a combination of suicide bombers, mortar rounds, bombs placed in pushcarts and a land mine. But witnesses’ descriptions of suspected bombers and analysis of the scenes -- including the discovery of detonating devices and shrapnel -- point to suicide attackers, police said.

“All of the executors of this operation were suicide attackers,” Col. Karim Hachim Sultan, Karbala’s deputy police chief, said in an interview outside the heavily fortified police station.

The conclusion that nine suicide bombers struck in Karbala -- along with three who blew themselves up almost simultaneously at a Shiite shrine in Baghdad, about 55 miles north -- underscored the coordination and organization that went into the plot.

Law enforcement authorities agree that the synchronized assaults in the two cities were jointly planned. That meant that plotters were able to enlist a dozen suicide bombers and equip, train and send them on their missions without being detected by U.S. or Iraqi forces.

Despite the widespread use of suicide assailants in insurgent campaigns worldwide, experts say few successful plots have involved so many in coordinated attacks.

A series of bombings targeting foreign-owned and Jewish sites in Casablanca, Morocco, in May involved 15 suicide bombers, authorities said, but only 12 managed to detonate their explosives. Those attacks killed 45 people, including the bombers.

Iraq’s Governing Council said last week that the combined death toll in the Karbala and Baghdad attacks was 271, but the count has since been revised downward.

The current toll in Karbala stands at about 130 killed and more than 200 wounded, Dr. Abdul Abbas Moussa Tamimi, administrator of Hussein Hospital, said Tuesday. Many victims were blown apart and were unrecognizable, he said, denying relatives the chance to identify their dead.

More than half of those killed here were Iranian pilgrims, who have been visiting Iraq’s Shiite shrines in vast numbers since the regime of Saddam Hussein fell and border controls were loosened.

As in New York after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, families posted leaflets around town inquiring about missing loved ones. One leaflet, taped to a wall of the Hussein Hospital lobby, sought information about Waail Shakur Gata, an 18-year-old from a Karbala suburb. The posting included a photo of the young man and his family’s address and telephone number.

Officials say 70 worshipers were killed in the Baghdad bombings, bringing the overall death toll to about 200 -- making March 2 the bloodiest day in Iraq since major combat was declared over May 1.

The culprits behind the carnage remain unknown, authorities here said. U.S. officials have called Abu Musab Zarqawi, an alleged Jordanian terrorist, a prime suspect. But they have offered no proof beyond a letter allegedly written by Zarqawi -- a Sunni Muslim -- in which he called for attacks against Shiites in an apparent bid to spark a civil war.

Iraqi authorities have pointed to several potentially suspect groups: the Al Qaeda terrorist network, Sunni fundamentalists known as Wahhabis and elements of Hussein’s former Baathist regime. But the Iraqis, like U.S. authorities, have produced no solid evidence linking anyone to the bombings.

“There are no crystal-clear indications as to who did it,” said Hachim, Karbala’s deputy police chief, who is coordinating his inquiry with U.S.-led occupation forces. “The perpetrators are all terrorists who want to foment instability and sedition,” he added.

One theory in wide circulation is that some Sunni-inspired terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda have allied with operatives of the former regime, which was resolutely secular. Proponents of this theory say a foreign group could not have emerged with such lethal effectiveness without the assistance of former Baathist intelligence agents with intimate knowledge of the country, extensive contacts and access to cash.

“Even Al Qaeda is unable to come here and carry out such attacks unless they find someone willing to help them inside the country,” said Maj. Chasip Hussein Juburi of the Karbala police.

Al Qaeda operatives are known to be operating in the area, said Warrant Officer Zbigniew Dabkiewicz of the Polish-led international force that patrols the region around Karbala. Polish forces arrested seven Iraqis suspected of being affiliated with Al Qaeda nine days before the attack in Karbala, Dabkiewicz said, declining to elaborate.

Karbala was also hit Dec. 27 by a series of vehicle suicide bombs that killed 19 people -- seven coalition soldiers and 12 Iraqis. Two bomb-laden trucks struck outside a Polish-run base in nearby Hillah on Feb. 18, killing at least 11.

Of 17 people arrested here after last week’s attacks, police said, eight have been released. The other nine -- six Iraqis and three Iranians -- are still being questioned, Hachim said.

At least two other suspects have been arrested in Najaf, police say. One said he was recruited by a former Iraqi intelligence officer to help plan attacks and may have known of the Karbala plot in advance, Najaf police said. The Najaf suspects were turned over to U.S.-led coalition forces, who are continuing to interrogate them, a military spokesman in Baghdad said.

Meanwhile, Iran said Tuesday that it had foiled a mortar attack on the religious center of Qom that was planned for the same day that Karbala and Baghdad were hit.

Citing an Intelligence Ministry statement, the official IRNA news agency said police found a mortar without ammunition at a farm on the outskirts of Qom, the center of learning for Iran’s Shiite clergy.

Staff writers Alissa J. Rubin in Baghdad and Sebastian Rotella in Amman, Jordan, contributed to this report.