What began as a tense yet joyful day for Iraq's Shiites, with about a million people chanting prayers and streaming toward a gold-domed shrine, unraveled into the single worst human tragedy since the beginning of the war.

Wednesday's celebration of the martyrdom of Shiite Imam Mussa Khadim, a descendant of the prophet Muhammad poisoned by a Sunni king in the 8th century, was supposed to be a symbol of Shiite Iraq's new political power and freedom, since it was a pilgrimage that was banned under Saddam Hussein. The massive celebration also served to underscore the country's rising religious fervor in the face of so much violence.

But the day that ended with about 800 deaths - most from a stampede sparked by rumors of a suicide bomber, and others from insurgent mortar attacks - was perhaps one of the most painful examples of the centuries-old division between Shiite and Sunni branches of Islam.

At 8 a.m., mortars and Katyusha rockets slammed into two neighborhoods near the shrine, killing 15 and injuring about 30.

An hour later, victims of poison - apparently in the free food and water available along the pilgrims' route - trickled into hospitals, according to Iraq's Health Minister. A leading Shiite politician alleged that 100 people were killed by poison.

Then at 10 a.m., the wave of the tragedy crested and broke. As tens of thousands of Shiite pilgrims poured onto the Bridge of the Imams toward the shrine, backing up at the end of the bridge to be checked for explosives, men in the crowd began shouting there was a suicide bomber, survivors say.

The crowd then surged. Strong men pushed and shoved to get to safety. Children, women, and the old were trampled.

On the bank across from Khadimiya, home of Imam Kadhim's mausoleum, pilgrims unaware of the panic kept piling up at the foot of the bridge, serving as a tragic cork in a bottle.

The pilgrims caught in the middle of stampede began to stack up on the bridge's span. Thousands tumbled over the railings, 50 feet into the murky waters of the Tigris River. Many of the people were unable to swim.

As the Monitor went to press, Iraqi health authorities said at least 700 mostly women and children were confirmed dead in the stampede, and at least 300 wounded. They said the death toll could top 1,000. It was the second most deadly incident at a Muslim pilgrimage; a stampede at Mecca during the Haj pilgrimage in 1990 killed 1,426 people.

"If we had been on the bridge already, we'd probably be dead right now," says Rashad Hanashi, still fighting to hold back tears, who was just moments from stepping onto the bridge when the panic started.

"There were dead women and children all around, I saw that and I began to strike my cheeks and cry. I won't forget this until the day I die," she said.

Ms. Hanashi describes a "mob in a frenzy" trying to get off the bridge, many shouting "suicide bomber" while others said they thought that poison gas had been released on the bridge.

While there is no evidence that anything other than panic and poor crowd control were directly responsible for Wednesday's tragedy, the backdrop of the early morning mortar attack and past Sunni insurgent suicide attacks at Shiite shrines had many pilgrims edgy before the morning attack.

Later in the day, Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said he believed panic was sown deliberately. "We smell an effort to provoke a strife and generalize it. There is no doubt that this terrorist operation doesn't differ from the other terrorist attack," he told Al Iraqiya, the state television station.

Iraqi police commandos and unarmed operatives from the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraqi (SCIRI), one of two main Shiite Islamist political parties, were out in force at the pilgrimage selling everything from dates and spices to portraits of Shiite Imams and DVDs.

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