By Sami Jumaili KERBALA, Iraq, Jan 29 (Reuters) - Shi'ite pilgrims called for an end to sectarian killing in Iraq as they swamped the holy city of Kerbala on Monday to commemorate the death of the Prophet Mohammad's grandson in battle there 1,300 years ago. Some of the two million black-clad pilgrims attending the annual Ashura event sought to emphasise Muslim unity and dampen the communal tensions between Sunnis and Shi'ites that have raised fears of an all-out civil war. "Stop the bloodletting," read one banner held aloft by pilgrims; "Let us make Ashura a day for brotherhood among Iraqis," read another; "We are all Muslims," a third. The death in battle in 680 of Imam Hussein entrenched the schism between Shi'ite Muslims and Sunnis, a split that now sharply divides Iraq. The country has witnessed a surge in bloodletting between its minority Sunnis and Shi'ites, oppressed under Saddam Hussein but now politically dominant. Addressing an Ashura gathering in Baghdad, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the most powerful Shi'ite political leader in Iraq, also called on Iraqis to bridge the sectarian divide. "We are one unified people and I look to our Sunni brothers with sympathy in this war against terrorists," he said, speaking from behind bullet-proof glass. "I condemn the killing of Sunnis just as I do Shi'ites and any other Iraqi," he said.TIGHT SECURITY An estimated 11,000 Iraqi soldiers and policemen threw a security cordon around Kerbala to prevent a possible attack by Sunni militants who have targeted the major Shi'ite event in the past. Radhi Haider, 37, walked four days from the town of Diwaniya southeast of Kerbala with his family, fearful of attack but determined to mark Ashura, a ceremony that was severely restricted in Saddam Hussein's secular state. "We feel afraid, but we consider Ashura a day of forgiveness," he told Reuters of the ceremony, which officially climaxes in Iraq on Monday but is marked by many Shi'ites on Tuesday. Kerbala police chief Abu al-Walid said more than 2 million pilgrims had gathered in the city under a dust-filled orange sky as a sandstorm cut a swathe through central and southern Iraq. Despite no reports of violence throughout the day, many pilgrims remained nervous, fearful of an attack similar to those blamed on suspected Sunni al Qaeda suicide bombers that killed around 170 pilgrims in Baghdad and Kerbala in 2004. Their fears were fuelled by a battle near the holy city of Najaf, where Iraqi security forces said they killed 300 gunmen from an apocalyptic Muslim cult led by a man claiming to be the Mahdi, a Messiah-like figure in Islam. "This occasion will not pass without trouble because the Takfireen (terrorists) are prepared for this important occasion. They started in Najaf yesterday and they will do it tomorrow God forbid, but we are more determined to do it," Shiyaa Mousa, 49, a tribal leader. Some pilgrims, marching in procession, symbolically whipped their backs to mirror the suffering of Imam Hussein. Ashura is the 10th day of the lunar month of Muharram, when according to Islamic tradition, Hussein was killed in a battle with the army of Caliph Yazid. He was decapitated and his head taken to Damascus, the seat of Yazid's Ummayad dynasty.
