12 Shiite pilgrim killed in suicide bomb attack in Baghdad

Up to 12 Shiite pilgrims were killed and 25 wounded in a suicide bomb attack in northern the Iraqi capital of Baghdad on Sunday, an Interior Ministry source said. The attack occurred in the afternoon when suicide bomber blew up his explosive vest among a crowd of Shiite pilgrims in Seliekh district in the northern part of Baghdad, the source said. The attack came as thousands of Shiite pilgrims walk from Baghdad districts in processions to commemorate the death of Imam Mohammed al-Jawad, the ninth of the 12 most revered Shiite Imams, whose tomb located in the center of the old part of the holy Shiite Kadhimiya district. Earlier, the source put the toll at one killed and seven wounded by a bomb attack on the pilgrims. Iraq is witnessing its worst eruption of violence in recent years, which raises fears that the country is sliding back to the full-blown civil conflict that peaked in 2006 and 2007, when monthly death toll sometimes exceeded 3,000. The UN Assistance Mission for Iraq has said that almost 6,000 civilians were killed and over 14,000 others injured in Iraq from January to September this year.