Karbala

Overview

Karbala is a city in Iraq and one of the most important places in Shia Islam. Its importance rests on the Battle of Karbala in 680 CE, when Husayn ibn Ali, a grandson of Muhammad, and members of his camp were killed. The battle became a defining event in Shia religious memory. Karbala remains a place of prayer, mourning and pilgrimage for Shia Muslims from Iraq and around the world. Its religious standing has also made it a focus of Iraqi state policy, security operations and competition among armed groups.

The Imam Hussein Shrine and the shrine of Abbas are Karbala’s central pilgrimage sites. Worshippers commemorate Husayn’s death on Ashura, the tenth day of Muharram, and return for Arbaeen, the observance 40 days later. Many Arbaeen pilgrims travel on foot from Najaf. These gatherings bring large numbers of visitors into the city and require extensive protection of its shrines, roads and processions. They have continued despite restrictions under Saddam Hussein and repeated attacks on pilgrims after his rule.

Geography

Karbala’s place in Iraq’s pilgrimage network is closely tied to Najaf. The walking route between the two cities is part of the Arbaeen observance, and restrictions on that route were a central feature of the Ba’athist government’s suppression of Shia religious practice. Pilgrims also approach Karbala from elsewhere in Iraq and from abroad. During Ashura and Arbaeen, security extends beyond the shrines to roads carrying worshippers toward the city, including routes through Baghdad.

The Hussein and Abbas shrines give Karbala its principal religious landmarks. Their immediate surroundings have been sites of worship, large gatherings and attacks. Other locations in and near the city have acquired political and security importance, among them the provincial coordination center attacked in 2007 and the unfinished Karbala Airport struck by U.S. aircraft in 2020. These places illustrate how events associated with the city extend beyond its shrine precincts while remaining shaped by Karbala’s national significance.

Modern history

The Battle of Karbala in 680 ended with the defeat of Husayn ibn Ali’s camp and his death. Many members of the family of Ali ibn Abu Taleb were also killed. Husayn’s death became a central element of Shia historical memory, and the city where it occurred became a destination for mourning and prayer. Ashura marks the battle’s anniversary; Arbaeen follows 40 days later. The observances connect Karbala’s shrines to a continuing religious calendar rather than treating the battle solely as a distant historical event.

Under Saddam Hussein, Iraqi authorities repeatedly interfered with these observances. The government restricted processions on foot into Karbala and denied visas to many foreign Shia pilgrims. In 1998, 1999 and 2000, pilgrims clashed with Ba’ath Party members and security forces enforcing the walking ban. In 1999, foreign pilgrims were reportedly charged $900 for bus passage and food from Damascus to Karbala, compared with a customary cost of about $150. Such measures constrained both access to the city and public expression of Shia mourning.

Repression also affected clerics and mourners connected to Karbala. On June 1, 1998, Ayatollah Sheikh Mirza Ali al-Gharawi, his son and his son-in-law were shot on the road between Karbala and Najaf. In 1998, Grand Ayatollah Mohammad al-Sadr designated the fifteenth of Sha’baan as another occasion for pilgrimage to Karbala, but the government prevented pilgrims from entering. After al-Sadr’s death in 1999 and government suppression of mourning, demonstrations took place in Karbala and Basra. Security measures around religious institutions continued into the following years.

In May 2000, the Ba’ath Party prohibited the walking pilgrimage from Najaf to Karbala for the 40th-day observance. More than 15,000 Republican Guard troops were deployed on roads into the two cities to enforce the ban. Iraqi security troops fired on pilgrims attempting the walk. The party again prohibited the ritual walking pilgrimage in May 2001, and security forces again fired on pilgrims who attempted it. The repeated bans show why control of the route was central to the government’s effort to limit Shia observance.

After Saddam Hussein’s rule ended, large pilgrimages resumed amid grave security threats. Bombings in Karbala and Baghdad during Ashura on March 2, 2004, killed an estimated 185 Shia worshippers; U.S. Central Command identified hallmarks of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s operations. In April 2004, supporters of Muqtada al-Sadr seized portions of Karbala. During the spring fighting, Mahdi Army fighters operated close to shrines, limiting coalition operations in urban combat. The proximity of armed fighters, worshippers and religious buildings made violence in the city especially consequential.

Security

On January 20, 2007, an Iran-backed militia carried out a hostage operation at Karbala’s Provincial Joint Coordination Center. Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq leader Qais al-Khazali authorized Adnan Fayhan al-Dulaymi to launch the attack, while Azhar al-Dulaymi led the assault. Ali Mussa Daqduq also participated. The attackers sought to abduct Americans and exchange them for detained members of the Iranian regime’s Quds Force. Iranian regime personnel built a full-scale mockup of the Karbala facility inside Iran so the fighters could rehearse the operation.

Five American soldiers were abducted and killed in the 2007 raid. Four were executed while bound and blindfolded. U.S. forces killed Azhar al-Dulaymi that May. Khazali later portrayed his role in the operation as honorable, but its objective was hostage-taking and its outcome was the murder of five Americans. The attack showed how an Iraqi city of major religious importance could also serve as the setting for a planned operation linked to Iran’s armed network.

Worshippers and travelers around Karbala faced further attacks in 2009. A bomb on a minivan departing the city killed 12 people and injured one on September 7. On October 15, three bombs near the Hussein and Abbas shrines killed six worshippers and injured 45. Two bombs at a Karbala restaurant on November 25 killed four people and injured 26; the second exploded after medics arrived. Another explosion in the city injured 26 people on December 24. These incidents struck both religious gatherings and ordinary places used by people moving through the city.

Iraqi authorities mounted large security operations around the pilgrimage calendar. In December 2009, they deployed 50,000 soldiers and police to Karbala and Najaf to protect nearly one million Ashura pilgrims. The scale of that deployment reflected both the size of the gatherings and the continuing danger to people attending them. Protection could not be limited to shrine entrances: pilgrims were attacked while traveling toward Karbala, and processions in other cities were also vulnerable.

Arbaeen travelers suffered a series of deadly attacks in February 2010. On February 1, a suicide bomber killed 41 Shia pilgrims and injured 106 in northern Baghdad as they traveled to Karbala. On February 3, a motorcycle bomb among pilgrims in Karbala killed 23 and injured 147. Two car bombs near the city on February 5 killed at least 27 Arbaeen pilgrims and injured 75. The attacks targeted successive points along the pilgrimage journey, from the approach to Karbala to gatherings within the city itself.

Security disputes later exposed divisions among forces associated with Karbala’s shrines. The Atabat, a network of shrine militias within the Popular Mobilization Forces, answer primarily to the spiritual leadership of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. Their position differs from that of Iran-backed militia leaders who have exercised administrative influence within the wider force. During the campaign against the Islamic State, shrine-linked fighters continued to take part in security efforts even as Iran-backed leaders restricted their salaries and support.

Liwa al-Tafuf illustrates a different path. Commanders who split from a Sistani-loyalist Popular Mobilization Forces brigade formed the unit in 2014 around Qasim Muslih, a former head of Karbala shrine security. Liwa al-Tafuf drew support and legitimacy from its shrine ties, but increasingly came under the administrative influence and operational control of Kata’ib Hezbollah founder Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. Its development does not make all shrine-associated units part of the same Iran-backed command structure; the Atabat retained a separate relationship with Sistani’s clerical network.

A U.S. airstrike on March 13, 2020, hit a facility at the unfinished Karbala Airport believed to store weapons for Kata’ib Hezbollah. Shrine militia guards and a civilian were accidentally killed. The site was guarded by Atabat personnel at the time, although the suspected weapons storage was associated with a different militia. The incident sharpened disputes over the distinction between shrine-aligned forces and Iran-backed armed networks.

Militia influence became a public issue after protest leader Ehab al-Wazni was assassinated in Karbala on May 9, 2021. Protesters attacked the Iranian consulate amid anger over the killing. Iraqi security forces arrested Muslih that month in connection with the assassination. He had been tasked by Kata’ib Hezbollah with countering civil society activists in Karbala from 2019 to 2021. Pressure from the militia network subsequently secured his release. The case placed the safety of Karbala’s activists, and the ability of Iraqi authorities to investigate militia figures, at the center of a national confrontation.

Present day

Karbala remains a destination for mass pilgrimage. More than two million Iranian pilgrims traveled to Iraq for Arbaeen in 2022, prompting coordination between Iranian and Iraqi officials. The gathering also drew attention from the Iranian regime’s security leadership: Quds Force commander Esmail Qaani arrived in Karbala on September 13, 2022, amid the pilgrimage. Qaani had also visited the city in 2020. His appearances show how Iranian officials have used access to Karbala’s religious gatherings while maintaining relationships with armed groups elsewhere in Iraq.

Militia leaders have also invoked Karbala beyond Iraq. At a February 2015 conference in the city, Khazali advocated using Iraqi state institutions to advance the Iranian regime’s Axis of Resistance. In a July 2023 Ashura speech, Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the terrorist organization Hezbollah, presented the Battle of Karbala as a model for the organization’s present and future action. These political uses of the battle draw on its religious significance, but they are distinct from the worship and mourning for which pilgrims visit the city.

Karbala also featured in the July 2026 funeral procession for slain Iranian regime leader Ali Khamenei. His body was taken to Karbala and Najaf for rites on July 8. Iraqi authorities limited official ceremonies to those two cities and barred senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commanders, including Qaani, from participating. The restrictions reflected Iraq’s control over ceremonies on its territory even as the city’s shrines drew a major Iranian state occasion.

Karbala’s continuing importance rests first on the shrines of Hussein and Abbas and the annual return of pilgrims for Ashura and Arbaeen. Its recent history also includes suppression of those rites, attacks on people taking part in them, and struggles over armed influence around the city. The distinction between Sistani-aligned shrine forces and militia networks tied to the Iranian regime remains essential to understanding those struggles.