Iraq would impose a three-day traffic ban on the capital to protect Shiite pilgrims expected to converge at a main Shiite shrine in northern Baghdad for a key religious ceremony on Thursday, Iraqi security spokesman said on Tuesday.
"The Iraqi government decided to impose traffic ban on Baghdad, starting from 10:00 p.m. (1800 GMT) on Wednesday to 5:00 a.m. ( 0100 GMT) on Saturday," Brigadier General Qasim Atta al-Moussawi said.
The traffic ban would start a day earlier in the Shiite sacred neighborhood of Kadhumiyah, where the shrine located, Moussawi said.
The traffic ban would start from 10:00 p.m. (1800 GMT) on Tuesday to 5:00 a.m. (0100 GMT) on Saturday, said Moussawi, chief spokesman of the Baghdad security plan.
He said that civilians would not be allowed to carry weapons and cell phones and that all the routes that pilgrims will follow on foot to the shrine would be tightly controlled by Iraqi security forces.
The Iraqi authorities expected that dozens of thousands of Iraqi Shiite pilgrims and others from Iran and other countries would take part in the annual pilgrimage to the tomb of the seventh of the twelve most revered Shiite Imams who was killed in the eighth century.
Two years ago, nearly 1,000 pilgrims making their way to the same ceremony died in a stampede on a bridge across the Tigris when there were rumors of a suicide bomber in the crowd.
Source: Xinhua
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