Baghdad, Dec 16 (IANS): Gunmen Monday shot dead nine Shia pilgrims in the city of Mosul, the capital of Iraq's northern province of Nineveh, a provincial police source said.
The attack occurred around noon when gunmen opened fire on a bus carrying Shia pilgrims in the southwestern part of Mosul, some 400 km north of the Iraq's capital Baghdad, Xinhua quoted the source as saying.
The pilgrims were on their way from their city of Tal Afar, some 70 km west of Mosul, to the holy Shia city of Karbala, some 110 km southwest of Baghdad, to commemorate the Arba'een ritual, which marks the 40th day after the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, Prophet Muhammad's grandson and the third holy figure in Shia Islam.