BAGHDAD Iraq’s top Shia cleric on Monday gave his support to the new government battling the ISIS as militants unleashed a wave of deadly attacks on the country’s majority Shia community, killing at least 43 people.
The blitz by the rebels this summer plunged Iraq into its worst crisis since U.S. troops left at the end of 2011.
Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who took office last month, met Monday with top Shia cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in the holy city of Najaf. He said after their talks that al-Sistani welcomed the recent formation of the government that Al-Abadi now leads.
The spiritual leader wields considerable influence among Iraqis, and the meeting carried symbolic significance because al-Sistani has shunned politicians in recent years to protest how they run the country.
“We have a long and hard mission ahead of us,” al-Abadi told reporters after emerging from the meeting with the cleric, who is believed to be 86 years old. “One of the missions is related to security. We need arms and we need to reconstruct our security forces.”
Al-Sistani lives in the holy city, 160 kilometers south of Baghdad, and rarely appears in public.
The day’s attacks killed dozens in Baghdad and the Shia holy city of Karbala.
In the capital, the bomber blew himself up among Shia worshippers as they were leaving a mosque in a central commercial area after midday prayers Monday. That blast killed at least 17 people and wounded 28, a police officer said.
In Karbala, four separate car bombs went off simultaneously, killing at least 26 people and wounding 55, another police officer said. The city, about 90 kilometers south of Baghdad, is home to the tombs Imam Hussain and his brother Abol Fazl Abbas and the site of year-round pilgrimages. The explosives-laden cars were parked in commercial areas and parking lots, the officer added.
The attacks in Baghdad and Karbala, the latest in relentless assaults that have challenged the Shia-led government, came a day after a suicide bombing targeted another Shia mosque in the Iraqi capital, killing 28 people.
The latest attacks bore the hallmarks of the Islamic State group, which has recently claimed several other large bombings in Baghdad and elsewhere.
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