BAGHDAD  At least 40 people, 16 them Iranian pilgrims, were killed and 72 were wounded Sunday in a suicide bombing in Baghdad at the doorstep of one of Iraq’s holiest Shiite shrines, government and hospital officials said.
The attacker appeared to have singled out a procession of Iranian pilgrims visiting the shrine of Imams Musa al-Kadhim and Mohammed al-Jawad in Baghdad’s northern Kadhimiya district, witnesses and security officers said.
Earlier in the day, a bus carrying Iranian pilgrims to Kadhimiya was hit by a blast from a roadside bomb in Diyala Province northeast of Baghdad, the Iraqi police said. Five people were wounded.
In the war here, Shiites have often been attacked on religious holidays. The holiest month of the Shiite calendar, Muharram, began last Monday, and many went out to celebrate, heartened by the steep declines in violence in the past year and the assurances from the government that its soldiers were ready to take over control of security from United States forces.
Site of the Suicide bombing - outside the Imam Moussa Al-kadhim shrine in the Kadhimiyah neighborhood: Kadhimayn Mosque - Shrine of the 7th and 9th Shia Imams: Musa al-Kadhim & Muhammad at-Taqi.
A suicide bombing in Iraq has killed at least 40 people and injured at least 72 more, according to local police. The suicide bomber, a woman wearing an abaya, a robe-like dress, struck near the entrance of a revered Shiite shrine Imam Moussa Al-kadhim Sunday morning in the Kadhimiya neighborhood. The attack comes during a Shia pilgrimage where many Iranians were celebrating the Shia holy Day of Ashura. 

Sunday's bombing came during Muharram, the first month of the Islamic calendar, among the holiest months for all Shiites Muslims, who prepare to commemorate the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, Prophet Muhammad's grandson, who was killed during a  680 battle in Karbala. 

A similar attack was perpetrated nine days after a December 26 car bomb exploded a minibus near the same holy shrine, which honors Khadim, considered the Seventh Imam, and killed at least 24 people and wounded 46 others.