Berri Urges Iran, Iraq to Limit Pilgrims’ Visits to Air Flights

Speaker Nabih Berri urged Iraq and Iran to limit the visits for Lebanese Shiites pilgrims to the holy sites in those two countries to flights by air.

An Nahar newspaper reported on Friday that the speaker contacted Iraqi Ambassador to Lebanon Omar al-Barzanji and Iranian Ambassador Ghazanfar Roknabadi to demand them to halt all visits by land.

Around 12 Lebanese were kidnapped as they headed to Lebanon on Tuesday from a pilgrimage in Iran. However there are no confirmed reports on the side that abducted them.

The case has triggered fears of sectarian tensions in Lebanon over the revolt in neighboring Syria.

The daily pointed out that all the organizers of the campaigns in the southern suburb of Beirut, the South and the Bekaa have been asked not to transfer the pilgrims by land in order to preserve their safety and to prevent any threats in the Syrian territories.

On Wednesday, A roadside bomb exploded near a bus carrying Lebanese Shiite pilgrims in western Iraq, killing three and wounding at least 10 others.

Iraq and Iran is home to some of the holiest sites in Shiite Islam, to which hundreds of thousands of pilgrims flock each year. Pilgrims are periodically attacked, often with bombs.