Pilgrims travel to Karbala to mark al-Arbaeen, the end of a 40-day mourning period after the anniversary of the seventh-century martyrdom of Imam Hussein, one of the Shi'ite religion's top saints. Shi'ites make up 60 percent of Iraq's estimated 26 million people and have dominated the new government.
Security was heightened in the already heavily fortified Green Zone of Baghdad, where the National Assembly will hold its long-awaited second session today to choose a parliament speaker and two deputies.
Negotiators haggled over who would get the parliament speaker job, considering interim President Ghazi al-Yawer. They hope the inclusion of Sunni Arabs like him in the new government will help quell the Sunni-led insurgency.
But Yawer turned down the post and instead asked the Shi'ite-led United Iraqi Alliance for the vice president's post, said Ali Faisal, political coordinator for the Shi'ite Political Council, which is part of the alliance.
Alliance members agreed to nominate former nuclear scientist Hussain al-Shahristani as one of two deputy parliament speakers and interim Finance Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi as one of two vice presidents.
Alliance negotiator Jawad al-Maliki said the Sunni Arabs were expected to name a candidate for the parliament's speaker position today.
Interim Interior Minister Falah al-Naqib predicted that militants will target today's National Assembly meeting -- only the second since the parliament was elected nearly two months ago in the nation's first free election in 50 years. The lawmakers met March 16 but repeatedly have postponed a second meeting because of negotiations over Cabinet positions.
Roads were blocked off yesterday, and security was tightened around the area, already surrounded by concrete blast walls and barbed wire. Several mortar rounds slammed into the banks of the Tigris River, just short of the Green Zone.
At a news conference, Naqib said the Iraqi Army may be capable of securing the nation in 18 months.
