Baghdad, Iraq - Assailants struck Shiite worshippers in three Iraqi cities Tuesday, killing at least 36 people in bombings and ambushes during the climax of ceremonies marking Ashoura, the holiest day in the Shiite calendar. In apparent retaliation, mortar shells slammed into predominantly Sunni neighborhoods in Baghdad hours later, killing at least five people and wounding 20, officials said.
The bloodiest attack Tuesday occurred when a suicide bomber blew himself up among a crowd of worshippers entering a Shiite mosque, killing 19 people and wounding 54 in Mandali, a predominantly Shiite city northeast of Baghdad and near the Iranian border.
To the north, a bomb in a garbage can exploded as scores of Shiites - most them Kurds - were performing rituals in Khanaqin, a majority Kurdish city also near the Iranian border. At least 13 people were killed and 39 were wounded, police Maj. Idriss Mohammed said.
"I was participating in Ashoura ceremonies with my son and all of a sudden the bloodshed hit," Abdul Jasim Hassan said, holding his 11-year-old son, Hussein, whose right leg was bleeding.
Nawal Hasson said she pleaded with her husband not to go to the ceremonies but went with him when he refused to stay home.
"I had a feeling that something might happen, because terrorists are always targeting Shiites," she said.
The two bombings occurred on the edge of Diyala province, not far from Baqouba, where fighting has raged for weeks between Sunni insurgents, Shiite militiamen and U.S.-Iraqi troops.
Gunmen in two cars also opened fire on a yellow minibus carrying Shiite pilgrims in the capital, killing at least seven people and wounding seven others, police said.
Iraqi police and military official questioned hundreds of suspects rounded up after a weekend battle near Najaf aimed at preventing a major attack against leading Shiite clerics and pilgrims coinciding with Ashoura.
The U.S. military said Iraqi security forces went to the area on Sunday after hearing that gunmen from a messianic Shiite cult were disguising themselves as pilgrims in order to carry out a surprise attack on the holy city.
Iraq's army said it killed the leader of the cult, called "Soldiers of Heaven," in a 24-hour battle that was ultimately won with the support of U.S. and British jets and American ground forces.
The U.S. military said more than 100 gunmen were captured but it did not say how many were killed. Iraq's Defense Ministry, by contrast, raised its figures on Tuesday to say 263 militants were killed, 210 wounded and 392 captured.
Ministry spokesman Mohammed al-Askari said those detained included 35 women and 31 children following reports that the gunmen had brought their families with them to make it easier to infiltrate the city.
Despite the certainty of sectarian violence, millions of Shiites in Iraq were commemorating Ashoura, marching in processions and beating themselves bloody in a frenzied show of grief over the 7th-century death of Imam Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad and one of the most revered Shiite saints.
Imam Hussein died in the battle of Karbala in A.D. 680. The battle cemented a schism in Islam between Shiites and Sunnis over leadership of the faith, a division that is at the heart of the sectarian violence that has spiraled in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, in particular since the Feb. 22 bombing of a Shiite mosque in Samarra.
Tens of thousand of people, many in mourning clothes, beat their chests and foreheads as they headed to the two gold dome shrines that includes the tombs of Imam Hussein, and his half brother Imam Abbas.
"Even if the terrorists tear us into pieces we will not stop coming to visit al-Hussein," said Abbas Karim, a 27-year-old laborer.
Last year's Ashoura commemorations were largely peaceful, but suicide bombers killed 55 Shiites in 2005 and twin blasts killed at least 181 people in 2004.
Under Saddam Hussein, pilgrims from Iran were banned and even Iraq's Shiites, who comprise about 60 percent of Iraq's 27 million people, were restricted from performing the Ashoura rituals.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said in remarks published Tuesday that he hopes sectarian militias will be dissolved and the Sunni insurgency ended within six months.
Al-Maliki made the optimistic prediction in an interview with the Arabic newspaper Al-Hayat as U.S. and Iraqi forces prepare for a security crackdown in Baghdad - the third attempt within a year to curb sectarian violence.
"The militias have to end and be transferred to political organizations and any competition with the state in its attempt to bring about security must end," said al-Maliki, who owes his job in part to the backing of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, leader of the biggest Shiite militia, the Mahdi Army.
The U.S. military said a Marine was killed Monday in fighting in Anbar province, an insurgent stronghold west of Baghdad, while an American soldier died in an accident northwest of Nasiriyah.
Associated Press writers Qassim Abdul-Zahra in Karbala and Yahya Barzani in Khanaqin contributed to this report.