Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki met with Iraq's most influential Shiite cleric Saturday, while attacks killed 13 Pakistani and Indian pilgrims south of the capital and three bombings left six people dead. Maliki traveled to the Najaf, 160 kilometers (100 miles) south of Baghdad, to meet with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. To the south, police said a group of 13 Pakistani and Indian pilgrims and their Iraqi driver were ambushed and killed on their way to the Shiite holy city of Karbala, 80 kilometers (50 miles) south of Baghdad, the Associated Press reported. The pilgrims _ 11 Pakistanis, including five women, and two Indians _ were shot on Friday, police said. They had all had their hands and legs bound. In Baghdad, a car bomb exploded in the residential neighborhood of Waziriyah as a police patrol passed by, shortly before a roadside bomb detonated at the same site, said police Maj. Ahmed al-Obeidi. The neighborhood was one of those which are to be included in the expanded security operation. In Mahaweel, about 56 kilometers (35 miles) south of the capital, a parked car bomb exploded near a police station, killing three civilians and wounding 14, police Col. Ahmed Mejwel said.
