No vehicles allowed at Shiite pilgrims' rally

~ Fearing an attack among the pilgrims, the government banned all private vehicles from the streets.

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Thousands of pilgrims arrived on foot Saturday at a Shiite shrine in Baghdad to start a major religious commemoration as private vehicles were banned from the streets to prevent car bombings. At least 19 people, including a U.S. soldier, were killed in attacks nationwide.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki urged Iraqis to cooperate with security forces during the ceremonies marking the death in 799 of Imam Moussa ibn Jaafar al-Kadhim, one of 12 Shiite saints.

The imam is buried in a golden-domed shrine in north Baghdad's Kazimiyah district.

Tens of thousands more Shiites were expected to visit the shrine today, when the ceremonies peak. Fearing an attack among the pilgrims, the government banned all private vehicles on the streets from Friday night until Monday morning. Soldiers, police and Shiite volunteers threw a security cordon around the shrine, frisking pilgrims as they arrived.

Mindful of Sunni-Shiite tensions, al-Maliki, a Shiite, warned against turning the ceremonies into a political demonstration, calling on clerics to urge people to unite and "shun whatever could lead to sectarian fights."

"We warn all those who use podiums [in mosques] to incite sectarian violence that they will be prosecuted as terrorists," he said in a statement, without elaboration.

Shiites from across the country began arriving at the shrine on Friday night on foot. Late Friday, gunmen opened fire on a group of pilgrims walking through the mostly Sunni Adil neighborhood in western Baghdad, killing seven of them.

Three mortars landed in Kazimiyah district late Saturday -- two in a river and one on a school compound -- but caused no casualties.

Huge turnouts

Last year, the government said about 1,000 people died during the Imam Kadhim commemoration when rumors of suicide bombers triggered a mass stampede on a bridge across the Tigris River. It was the biggest single day death toll since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003.

"Last year I was on the bridge and I fell into the water but that gave me the power to come back. I challenge the terrorists now that I have come to visit the imam," said Rahim al-Rubaie, 29.

Shiites were prevented from mustering huge crowds at religious ceremonies during Saddam Hussein's Sunni-dominated regime. But since Saddam's ouster in 2003, Shiite politicians and religious leaders have encouraged huge turnouts as a demonstration of the majority sect's power.

As the pilgrims arrived under the blistering summer heat, volunteers handed out orange drinks and free food. Many of the pilgrims waved the green flag of Islam or flags of their tribes, and some were cloaked in white robes, a symbol of their willingness to die.

"My cousins died here last year so I have come this year and I wish to die to be martyr and join my cousins in the paradise " said Ali al-Saedi, a 20-year-old college student.

Because of the vehicle ban, no cars and very few people were seen on the streets except police and army vehicle patrols. But the area around the shrine in Kazimiyah bustled with activity.

A government statement said it was "absolutely forbidden" to carry weapons, cell phones and any type of bags, even plastic ones into the shrine.

The ceremonies are taking place during a major U.S.-Iraqi security operation aimed at curbing Sunni-Shiite violence, which threatens the stability of the new government of national unity. Nearly 12,000 U.S. and Iraqi troop reinforcements are coming in to take control of this city of 6 million people neighborhood by neighborhood.

An American soldier was killed in combat Saturday in Anbar province, the stronghold of the Sunni Arab insurgency west of Baghdad, the U.S. military announced. At least 2,605 members of the U.S. military have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

Nine people were killed Saturday in Baqouba, a major Sunni-Shiite flashpoint, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad. The victims included two professors of the Diyala University who were shot dead while returning home.

Also Saturday, four Iraqi soldiers were killed when the convoy they were traveling in was struck by a roadside bomb in Diwaniyah, 80 miles of Baghdad, police 1st Lt. Raed Jabir said.

Five other people also were killed in scattered violence across the country.

Meanwhile, Pope Benedict XVI appealed for the release of a priest kidnapped at gunpoint in Baghdad, in a telegram sent to the Patriarch of the Iraqi capital, the Vatican said Saturday.

In the telegram, sent by the Vatican's Secretary of State Angelo Sodano, the pontiff expressed "profound sadness" at the abduction of Rev. Hanna Saad Sirop Tuesday in Baghdad as he left Mass celebrating the Assumption holiday.

Christians make up just 3 percent of Iraq's 26 million people.

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Associated Press Writer Vijay Joshi contributed to this report in Baghdad.