Iraqi PM: Militants wanted to blow up Kerbala shrine
Iraq's Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Wednesday militants involved in violence in the city of Kerbala wanted to blow up the Imam Hussein shrine, one of the holiest in the world to Shi'ite Muslims.
Police said gunmen had tried to take over the area around the Imam Hussein shrine and also the Imam Abbas shrine on Tuesday at the height of a Shi'ite festival in the southern city. "From our initial investigation, we found some evidence of who did this act... the intention of this act was to storm into the shrine of Imam Hussein and blow it up," Maliki said from inside the Imam Hussein shrine during a visit to Kerbala. (Reuters)
