Female suicide bomber kills 40 in Iraq

BAGHDAD-A female suicide bomber struck a tent filled with women and children resting during a pilgrimage south of Baghdad on Friday, killing 40 people and wounding about 80 in the deadliest of three straight days of attacks against Shiite worshippers.The grisly assault, which also appeared to be the deadliest in Iraq this year, demonstrates the determination of some extremists to re-ignite sectarian warfare.It also underscores how fragile security remains here, even as the U.S. turns over more responsibility to the Iraqis.Witnesses said many of the injured were hurt in a stampede as terrified survivors-most of them poor Shiites exhausted after days of walking-scrambled away from the tent in terror.They left behind piles of clothing, small rugs and toddlers' strollers, Associated Press Television News video showed.A dismembered leg believed to have been the bomber's lay wrapped in an abaya in a cardboard box."It was a horrific scene with dead and screaming injured people on the ground," said Sadiya Kadom, 40, a Baghdad resident who was near the tent when the blast occurred.No group claimed responsibility.But suicide bombings against Shiite civilians are the signature attack of al-Qaida in Iraq, which U.S. commanders say has been severely weakened but not defeated. "What kind of belief system do these people have? Are they monsters?" a man shouted as he held his dazed and wounded son, wrapped in a red and yellow blanket. "What is my son's fault? What did he do?" implored the man, one of a number of pilgrims mingling aimlessly around the site hours after the attack. He refused to give his name.The bomber was successful in detonating her explosives despite a massive security operation by Iraqi authorities to protect the hundreds of thousands of pilgrims streaming into the Shiite holy city of Karbala for religious rituals that culminate Monday.The vast numbers of pilgrims and the distances many of them must travel make it all but impossible to guarantee their safety against determined extremist groups willing to die.The blast occurred at midday near a dusty stretch of road flanked by palm trees alongside a railroad track close to Musayyib, about 40 miles south of Baghdad and 10 miles north of Karbala.Separate tents for men and women offer pilgrims food, beverages and a place to rest along the routes to Karbala.A procession leader, Mussa al-Kadhem, said he was drinking tea with a group of men when he noticed a woman dressed in a full-body black abaya robe and with her face covered wander into the women's tent.He said he sensed something was wrong with the woman."As soon as some people asked who she was ... there was a huge explosion," he said....

Associated Press Writer Hamid Ahmed and an AP correspondent in Musayyib contributed to this report.
By ROBERT H. REID, Associated Press Writer
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