Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki met with the country's most influential Shiite cleric Saturday to discuss the deteriorating security situation, while attacks killed 13 Pakistani and Indian pilgrims south of Baghdad and three bombings left six people dead.
Al-Maliki met with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in Najaf, the cleric's office said, according to the AP. "If the government does not do its duty in imposing security and order to the people and protecting them, it will give a chance to other powers to do this duty and this a very dangerous matter," al-Sistani's office quoted him as saying.
The meeting came two days after a barrage of coordinated attacks across mainly Shiite eastern Baghdad killed 64 people and injured 286.
In the latest violence, police said a group of 13 Pakistani and Indian pilgrims and their Iraqi driver were ambushed and killed on their way to the Shiite holy city of Karbala. The pilgrims were shot Friday, police said. They had all had their hands and legs bound.
In Mahaweel, about 35 miles south of the capital, a car bomb exploded near a police station, killing three civilians and wounding 14, police Col. Ahmed Mejwel said.
In Baghdad, a car bomb detonated in the residential neighborhood of Waziriyah as a police patrol passed by, followed by a roadside bombing later at the same site, said police Maj. Ahmed al-Obeidi. Three people were killed.
