Shiite Muslims March to Baghdad Shrine

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Thousands of Shiite Muslims marched through a northern Baghdad neighborhood Thursday carrying 17 wooden coffins of fellow Shiites killed while returning home from a pilgrimage to the holy city of Karbala.

The residents of Kazimiyah pounded on drums, chanted religious slogans and threw perfumed water at the coffins as they made their way to a shrine in the mostly Shiite neighborhood.

Gunmen in the capital had targeted the pilgrims as they returned from Karbala, where millions gathered this week to commemorate the 40th and final day of symbolic mourning for the Prophet Muhammad's grandson.

Police reported that at least six Shiite Muslims were killed and 50 others wounded Wednesday in attacks on buses and trucks transporting the pilgrims. Officials also discovered the bodies of at least 16 other pilgrims, all dressed in black, on a Baghdad highway.

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