Iraq ? Gunmen attacked a home northeast of Baghdad late Monday as the family was performing Shiite religious rituals, wounding six in violence ahead of this week’s major Shiite feast. At least 11 other people died in scattered shootings and bombings, police said.

The family was performing Shiite rituals associated with Ashura, the most important date in the Shiite calendar, which falls this year on Thursday. Shiites perform a number of rituals in the run-up to Ashura, which commemorates the seventh century death in battle of Imam Hussein, grandson of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad.

Sunni extremists have targeted the past two Ashura festivals. Eight suicide bombers killed 55 Shiites last year. In 2004, at least 181 people died in bombings at shrines in Baghdad and Karbala.