FNA- Iranian Border Guards Commander Brigadier General Qassem Rezayee and his and Iraqi counterpart General Hamid Abdullah Ibrahim in a meeting in the city of Mehran in Western Iran on Sunday discussed broadening of mutual cooperation.

During the meeting in the Western Iranian border city, the Iranian and Iraqi border guards commanders explored avenues for bolstering and reinvigorating of bilateral ties.

The two sides also discussed the latest situation of the traffic of pilgrims in Mehran and Zarbatiya borders.

General Rezayee and his Iraqi counterpart also reviewed the latest planning for the traffic of pilgrims who have been travelling to Iraq to attend the Arbayeen mourning ceremony which is one of the largest religious gatherings in the world.

Arbayeen marks the 40th day after the martyrdom anniversary of the grandson of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) and the third Shiite Imam Hussein (PBUH).

Each year, pilgrims, mainly from Iraq and Iran, travel long routes on foot to Karbala, where the holy shrine of Imam Hossein (PBUH) is located.

Imam Hossein (PBUH) was martyred in the 680 A.D. battle fought on the plains outside Karbala, a city in modern Iraq that's home to the Imam's holy shrine.

In the battle, Imam Hossein (PBUH) was decapitated and his body mutilated by Yazid's armies. All of Imam Hossein's male family members, relatives, friends, soldiers who all together formed a 72-member army were beheaded in an unequal war with a 30,000-strong army of the enemy in the desert of Karbala.

The occasion is the source of an enduring moral lesson for the Shiites.

Imam Hossein's martyrdom - recounted through a rich body of prose, poetry and song - remains an inspirational example of sacrifice to Shiites, who make up a majority of the Muslim population in Iran, Pakistan, Iraq and Bahrain.