Six dead, 38 wounded in Baghdad attack

Two mortar bombs struck a square filled with Shi'ite Muslim pilgrims in Iraq's capital Baghdad on Sunday (June 10), killing at least six people and wounding 38, police and hospital sources said.

Although overall violence in Iraq has dropped, Sunni Islamist insurgents with links to al Qaeda are still capable of lethal attacks and hit Shi'ite targets to stir up the kind of sectarian pressure that almost led to civil war in 2006-2007.

Sectarian tensions have been high in Iraq since the withdrawal of U.S. forces in December, with the country's main Shi'ite, Sunni and Kurdish blocs locked in a political crisis that threatens to wreck a power-sharing deal.

Sunday's attack occurred in Quraish Square in Baghdad's northwestern Kadhimiya district, where pilgrims were gathering ahead of a religious festival to mark the anniversary of the death of mediaeval Shi'ite imam Moussa al-Kadhim.

Police sources said the death toll could rise.