Throughout the weekend hundreds of thousands of Shiites traveled to the holy city of Najaf to mourn the death of their spiritual leader Ayatollah Muhammad Baqr al-Hakim who died in the blast.

Al-Hakin headed the Iranian-backed Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq and had lived in exile in Iran for over 20 years before returning after the fall of Baghdad. He was viewed as a moderate by the U.S.