Prior to one of the largest religious gatherings in history, Iraqi security officers opened fire in the air amid an altercation among themselves on Thursday in the historic Shiite Muslim city of Karbala, according to security officials.
Under cover of anonymity owing to the delicacy of the subject, an interior ministry official told AFP that the event involved the Iraqi army and members of the Hashed al-Shaabi, who were primarily pro-Iran Shiite former paramilitaries absorbed into the Iraqi security forces.
About five kilometers (three miles) from Karbala’s old city, on a street designated for pedestrian pilgrims, four Hashed cars tried to breach an Iraqi army checkpoint, resulting in the predawn battle, according to the official.
According to the official, both sides shot weapons into the air, but no one was hurt. However, the army stopped the cars from passing.
Hundreds of thousands of Shiite pilgrims celebrating Arbaeen had gathered in Karbala at the shrine of Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Mohammed and a founding member of Shiite Islam, at the time of the standoff and firing.
The 40-day mourning period following the assassination of Imam Hussein in 680 AD by the soldiers of Caliph Yazid ends on Arbaeen. Official statistics indicate that 22 million pilgrims visited Arbaeen last year, many of them were from Iran.
The interior ministry official said six Hashed members were arrested by a security unit of their own institution after the incident. A Hashed official confirmed the arrests.
“An investigation is ongoing to identify who was responsible for opening fire in the middle of pilgrims,” said the official, who asked not to be named because of the matter’s sensitivity.
The Hashed were founded in 2014 to combat jihadists from the Islamic State group, whose march the regular army was unable to halt.
Even after being assimilated into Iraq’s security services, some of its fighters still have significant political and military clout, and they occasionally engage in conflict with other security organizations.
Official data indicate that since August 6, around 2.9 million pilgrims have entered Iraq for Arbaeen. Sunday is when the celebration peaks.
