118 Shiite Pilgrims Killed in Iraq Attacks

Anwar Shammary, a Supreme Council officer, blamed Sunni militants and former loyalists of Saddam Hussein for the attack, saying they wanted to "scuttle the political process and the Baghdad security operation."

Other Shiite leaders condemned the attacks, with some expressing concern that Shiites are increasingly vulnerable as Sunni insurgents step up attacks while Shiite militias keep a low profile.

"The blood of those who love the ancestors of the prophet was dropped today on the soil of Iraq," Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said in a statement. "This angry crime against unarmed citizens won't pass without punishment."

Hilla is the capital of Babil, one of the three provinces where U.S. officials last year handed over control of security operations to Iraqi officials.

"This certainly is not an indication that the province is not working under Iraqi control," said Lt. Col. Christopher C. Garver, a U.S. military spokesman. "We have a very determined enemy in this country. They're out to conduct spectacular attacks to restart the cycle of violence. We know they are going to be successful at times."

Most of the large-scale attacks against U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians since the Feb. 14 inception of the Baghdad security plan appear to have been committed by Sunni insurgents. Shiite militias, meanwhile, including the powerful Mahdi Army, led by anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, appear to have scaled down their violence.

Abdul Razak al-Nadawi, a spokesman for Sadr, denounced the attacks as "a criminal act" and blamed the government for not protecting the pilgrims. Sadr representatives, he added, had asked the government to allow the Mahdi Army to help provide security along the route from Baghdad to Karbala, but the government did not take them up on the offer.

"Last year, when the Mahdi army was involved in securing the road, no attacks occurred, but this year we have seen the breaches that happened," Nadawi said in a telephone interview from the southern city of Najaf. "The government should have been more alert and better prepared to deal with the situation."

Nadawi said that the Sadrists would not be pressured to retaliate against the Sunni insurgents. "We are still committed and comply with the words of our leader, Moqtada Sadr, which call for calm and self-restraint," he said.

Other Sadr officials said the attacks suggested that the Sunni insurgents were trying to capitalize on Sadr's orders to his men to lay down their arms. "I don't think there's a single Iraqi who doesn't want the Mahdi Army to get into the streets," said Ayad al-Khaby, a Sadr official in Baghdad's Kadhimiyah neighborhood.

A Mahdi Army commander in Baghdad, Mohammad Abu Haider, said he was upset that people he called Sunni criminals were not being brought to justice. But he said he and his fighters would obey Sadr's orders and refrain from seeking revenge. "We want to show we have a clean hand," he said. "The Sadrists have the ability to retaliate to avenge the innocent blood that was shed today."

In the Dora neighborhood of Baghdad, Mustafa Malik Thiyab, 22, was walking with his father and five brothers toward Karbala, a pilgrimage his father has vowed to make every year, when the group was caught in cross fire between insurgents and police. Thiyab and his relatives hid in a tent along with other pilgrims as the gunfight unfolded outside for more than half an hour. Then a bomb blew up next to the tent, he said.