Analysis: Shia pilgrims on the bridge had reason to fear attacks, writes Michael Jansen.
Yesterday's stampede of Shia pilgrims crossing a bridge across the Tigris opposite the Kadhamayn mosque was a disaster waiting to happen.
This particular bridge was tightly-packed with people because the US military had closed off other bridges for security reasons.
The Shias on the bridge had good reason to fear suicide bombers and other forms of attack because tensions between Shias and Sunnis have been escalating since the January 30th parliamentary election.
Shia fears were realised earlier in the day when mortars were fired into the midst of the throng assembled round the magnificent 16th century Persian-style mosque.
Therefore, the rumour that bombers were circulating among the crowd instantly created panic and prompted many to leap from the bridge.
Shias were well aware that the mass assemblage was a target of opportunity for purist Sunnis, particularly Islamist foreign elements, who consider Shias to be non-Muslims and Shia mourning ceremonies to be un-Islamic and even anti-Islamic.
Iraqi and Arab Sunnis are increasingly angered and alienated by the post-war ascendancy of the Shias, and by the killing of Sunnis by Shia death squads said to be connected with the Interior Ministry controlled by the pro-Iranian Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.
Today's escalating sectarian warfare in Iraq is a manifestation of the bloody succession struggle between the orthodox Sunnis and the heterodox Shias which began in the seventh century.
The Shias were mourning the death in 799 of Mousa Kadhim, known as "The Forebearing", their seventh of 12 imams, the spiritual leaders of the Shia sect who contested the Sunni right to rule through the Caliphate.
Mousa Kadhim, whose elevation split the Shias and led to the creation of the dissident Ismaili sect, was murdered on the order of the Sunni Caliph Haroun al-Rashid, the ruler of the Muslim empire during Baghdad's golden age. Shias have never forgiven the Sunnis for the persecutions Shias suffered. Shia resentment against Sunnis is sustained and fuelled by mourning rites such as the observances held for Kadhim.
During the reign of Saddam Hussein, a secular Sunni, mass observances by Shias were banned.
The government strongly disapproved of flagellation and other physical punishments inflicted by the Shias on themselves during ritual mourning.
By denying Shias the right to hold such gatherings, Saddam Hussein also avoided fatal crushes and stampedes and prevented rebellious Shia clerics and laymen from using religious occasions to stage protests which could very well get out of hand.