Shi'ite Muslims conclude Ashura pilgrimage in Iraq

KERBALA, Iraq (Reuters) - The Shi'ite Muslim religious festival of Ashura passed without major violence in Iraq on Sunday, after tight security was deployed to safeguard millions from the bloody attacks that marred past pilgrimages.

At mosques and shrines across Iraq, millions of Shi'ites, Iraqis and foreigners, commemorated the slaying of Prophet Mohammad's grandson Hussein at the battle of Kerbala in 680 AD, an event that defines Shi'ism and its rift with Sunni Islam.

Loudspeakers blared Ashura chants across Baghdad and the city of Kerbala, 80 km (50 miles) south of the capital, where hundreds of thousands of pilgrims dressed in black gathered outside the golden-domed Imam Hussein shrine.

Many had walked miles to get there in processions that have been frequent target for Sunni Islamist insurgents in the past.

Some 20,000 members of Iraq's security forces formed cordons around Kerbala, vehicles were banned and 1,000 snipers were perched on the roofs of buildings. Troops stood watch with bomb-sniffing dogs and the wands used to detect explosives.

Iraq's Shi'ite-led government has tightened security for the event in recent years, but a peaceful Ashura was especially important this year ahead of a March 7 parliamentary election.

Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's party is set to contest the polls on a law-and-order platform, but a series of high-profile bombings in Baghdad in recent months have chipped away at his claims to have quelled violence in Iraq.

"These efforts made a huge difference in the success of the pilgrimage, and we think the government made greater efforts because of the elections. Otherwise, why wasn't the security as good in previous years?" asked pilgrim Nasser Hussein.

Saddam Hussein, a Sunni, placed strict limits on the traditional pilgrimage to Kerbala, but since his overthrow in 2003 Ashura has become a show of strength for Iraq's Shi'ite majority and a prime target of Sunni Islamist insurgents.

Groups such as al Qaeda consider Shi'ites heretics due to their veneration of Hussein and Prophet Mohammad's family, who are respected but not held in the same regard by Sunnis.

At the climax of the 10-day Ashura event, vast crowds beat their chests and heads in mourning, chanting accounts of Hussein's death on the battlefield at Kerbala, where he and his followers made a desperate last stand against the armies of the Caliph Yazid, whom Shi'ites view as an oppressor.

There were sporadic, mostly small-scale attacks on pilgrims in recent days. One roadside bomb killed four pilgrims and wounded 28 in Tuz Khurmato, north of Baghdad, on Sunday. Another killed two pilgrims and wounded eight in Baghdad on Saturday.

(Additional reporting by Haider Salahuddin, Writing by Mohammed Abbas)