Ahlul Bayt News Agency (ABNA.ir), KARBALA / Iraq: Six people were killed and 30 others wounded when two rockets hit the area near the Imam Hussein Shrine, central Karbala city.

“The attack occurred Tuesday (July 27) evening when the two rockets fell only 1 km from the shrine,” a local medical source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.

On Sunday (July 25), the Karbala police chief said that more than 30,000 security personnel were deployed in nine intersections of the province, within preparations for the Shiite pilgrimage of al-Ziyara al-Shaabaniya.

Meaning literally the mid-Shaaban visit, the al-Ziyara al-Shaabaniya is a pilgrimage to revive the memory of the birth of the Messiah-like Imam al-Mahdi, the 12th holiest figure for Shiites Muslims.

Karbala, with an estimated population of 572,300 people in 2003, is considered to be one of Shiite Muslims’ holiest cities.

The city, 110 km southwest of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, is one of Iraq’s wealthiest, profiting both from religious visitors and agricultural produce, especially dates.

Meanwhile A bomb has detonated inside a restaurant in the north of the Iraqi capital, leaving five people killed and more than a dozen others wounded.

The explosion happened at around 9:30 a.m. (0630 GMT) on Wednesday in Baghdad's Sadr city, AFP reported.

A woman was among the victims of the blast which injured 13 more people, said officials from the defense and interior ministries who were speaking on condition of anonymity.

It is made up of two districts, “Old Karbala,” the religious centre, and “New Karbala,” the residential district containing Islamic schools and government buildings.

At the center of the old city is al-Masjid al-Husseini, the tomb of Imam Hussein Ibn Ali, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad by his daughter Fatima al-Zahraa and Ali Ibn Abi Taleb.

Imam Hussein’s tomb is a place of pilgrimage for many Shiite Muslims. Many elderly pilgrims travel there to await death, as they believe the tomb to be one of the gates to paradise. On April 14, 2007, a car bomb exploded about 200 meters from the shrine, killing 47 and wounding over 150.

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