OIC condemns Iraq suicide bombings as Shiite festival peaks

07 January 2009 - 14H40

The Organisation of the Islamic Conference Wednesday strongly condemned a spate of suicide bombings in Iraq, saying such acts are contrary to Islamic teachings.

OIC Secretary General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu said suicide bombings are "abhorrent criminal acts" and said that senior Iraqi Sunni and Shiite scholars convened by the OIC "had rejected such acts as contrary to Islamic teachings and its noble values," according to an OIC statement.

"Perpetrators of such heinous acts are the enemies of Islam," Ihsanoglu said.

He made specific reference to a bombing on January 2 which killed 23 people at a tribal meeting in Yusufiyah south of Baghdad and to a January 4 incident in which a suicide bomber blew himself up near a Shiite holy shrine, killing at least 35 people including women, children and Iranian pilgrims.

Ihsanoglu's statement came as some two million Shiite Muslim pilgrims swarmed the shrine city of Karbala in central Iraq on Wednesday for the climax of the annual Ashura ceremonies.

The OIC groups 1.3 billion Muslims from 57 countries worldwide.