Terrorist Bombing in Baghdad Wounds 3 Iranian Pilgrims

TEHRAN (FNA)- At least three Iranian pilgrims were wounded in a terrorist attack on their bus in the Iraqi capital city of Baghdad at midday.

FNA dispatches from Baghdad said a remote-controlled bomb blasted on the way of a bus carrying Iranian pilgrims in Taji town in Baghdad, wounding three Iranian pilgrims.

Iraqi police forces transferred the wounded pilgrims to Taji hospital immediately after the attack.

More that 1,500 pilgrims come from the neighboring Iran each day to visit Shiite shrines in Iraq, mainly in the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala.

The shrine of Imam Ali (PBUH) is located in Najaf and the shrine of Imam Hussein (PBUH) is located in Karbala.

Violence is at the lowest in the country ever since the US invasion in 2003, but Iraq's cities have seen a surge of terrorist attacks in recent weeks.

Many Iraqis believe that the surge is the result of a US plot to set the stage for an extension of its military mission in Iraq which comes to an end in just the next three months.

After several bomb blasts in the holy city of Karbala took the lives of scores of people late last month, Iraqi politicians condemned the US for the terrorist attacks and said the explosions took place as a result of a US plot to justify its longer military buildup in Iraq.

Spokesman of al-Ahrar Faction in the Iraqi parliament Mashreq Naji took the foreign and occupying forces responsible for the blasts in the holy city of Karbala, which killed at least 15 and wounded 113 more, and said the US is seeking to create an excuse for extending its mission in Iraq.

"The US occupying forces should be blamed for the yesterday blasts in the holy city of Karbala and they should account for it to the people," Naji told FNA at the time.

He said such moves are aimed at stirring or intensifying sectarian strife between the Shiite and Sunni populations in a bid to create a pretext for the extension of the occupying troops' mission in Iraq.

Naji described unity among different groups and tribes in Iraq as the only way to encounter such plots, and said, "The political groups should keep united against the enemies of Iraq since it is the only way to fight these infidel groups.

"We will be able to foil all their plots through our unity."

In relevant remarks, a spokesman for the Shiite Sadr Movement stressed that the multiple blasts in Karbala served as part of a broader plot hatched to spark sectarian strife in Iraq to justify a longer US military presence in the war-torn country.

"These explosions are mainly aimed at intensifying differences and ethnic tension between Iraqi Shiites and Sunnis to prepare the ground for extending the security deal and the US military mission in Iraq," Sheikh Saleh al-Obeidi told FNA last month.