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LequteMan
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According to Reuters, security and medical sources have revealed that at least 32 people were killed on Saturday as two suicide bombers targeted Shi'ite Muslims in Iraq.
In Baghdad, a suicide bomber detonated his explosives at a checkpoint, killing at least 20 Shi'ite pilgrims on their way to visit a shrine in the Kadhimiya district.
Earlier on Saturday, another suicide bomber had blew himself up inside a cafe in a mainly Shi'ite town of Balad, 80 km (50 miles) north of Baghdad, killing 12 people. The cafe was targeted in an almost identical bombing 40 days ago.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for either of the bombings, but such attacks are the hallmark of Sunni Islamist al Qaeda, which views Shi'ites as non-believers and has been regaining momentum this year.
Relations between Islam's two main denominations have come under acute strain from the conflict inSyria, which has drawn fighters from Iraq and the wider Middle East into a sectarian proxy war.
Also, in the northern city of Mosul, unidentified gunmen shot two Iraqi television journalists dead as they were filming, security sources said.
It was not clear who was behind the killing of the journalists, who worked for Iraqi television channel al-Sharqiya News, which is often critical of the Shi'ite-led government and is popular among the country's Sunni minority.
"They shot them in the chest and head, killing them instantly," said a security source.
Iraq is considered one of the most dangerous countries for journalists. The Baghdad-based Journalism Freedoms Observatory said that 261 journalists have been killed and 46 kidnapped in Iraq since 2003.
The Journalists' Syndicate denounced the killings as a "criminal act", demanding the authorities track down the perpetrators and do more to protect the media.
