Amid chilly temperatures and heavy security, thousands of black-clad pilgrims from across Iraq marched Thursday in the annual procession in marking the death of a Shiite saint.
Pilgrims traditionally travel on foot to the shrine and burial site of Imam Moussa al-Kadhim, the seventh of 12 Shiite imams who died in a Baghdad prison in the eighth century. The procession leads to the site in the northern Baghdad neighborhood of Kadimiyah. Participants wear black, with some carrying out self-flagellation to publicly express their mourning.
