Hawzah News Agency - Millions of Shia Muslims were marking Ashoura on Tuesday, one of the most sacred religious holy days for their sect, holding rallies, prayers.

In southern Beirut, thousands of people, carrying yellow flags of the Lebanese Hezbollah group, rallied in the group's stronghold where two Israeli drones crashed late last month.

The somber day commemorates the killing of the Prophet Muhammad's grandson, the Imam Hussein, by a rival Muslim faction in Karbala in present day Iraq, in 680 A.D. Hussein and his descendants are seen by Shia as the rightful heirs to the Prophet.

In Iraq, hundreds of thousands held Ashoura processions amid beefed-up security in Karbala and the capital, Baghdad, marching through the streets.