Blast at mosque kills 25

2005-10-05 18:29

Hillah - A bomb exploded at the entrance of a Shiite Muslim mosque south of Baghdad as hundreds of worshippers gathered for prayers ahead of the breaking of the fast on the first day of Ramadan, killing at least 25 people and wounding 87, police and hospital officials said.

The explosion hit the Husseiniyat Ibn al-Nama mosque, ripping through strings of light-bulbs and green and red flags hung around the entrance to celebrate the start of the holy month.

The mosque's facade was ravaged, shops nearby were destroyed and several nearby cars were damaged.

It was the second major bomb attack in a week in Hillah, one of the most insurgent-hit towns in southern Iraq, the heartland of the Shiite majority.

Al-Qaeda in Iraq, one of the country's deadliest militant groups, has called for stepped up attacks during Ramadan and has declared an all-out war on Iraq's Shiites.

The blast, which police believed was caused by a planted explosive, killed at least 25 people and wounded at least 87, said Dr Adnan al-Nashtah of the city's health department.

Hundreds of men had gathered at the mosque, located in the centre of Hillah, for prayers before returning home to eat the meal that ends the day's sunrise to sunset fast when the blast went off.

Others were just arriving, coming in the entrance or parking their cars nearby.

The explosion detonated on the sidewalk next to the entrance just before 18:00.

Series of blasts

Wednesday was the first day of Ramadan for Iraq's Shiite majority. Sunnis began marking the month a day earlier.

The attack came five days after a car bomb exploded in a crowded Hillah market, killing 10 people in the town about 95km south of Baghdad.

A day earlier, a string of car bombs hit in Balad, a Shiite town north of Baghdad, killing about 100 people.

On February 28, a suicide car bomber hit Shiite police and national guard recruits in Hillah, killing 125 people - the deadliest single bombing of the insurgency.

The Hillah bombing was the latest in a string of attacks by Sunni-led insurgents that have targeted Shiite Muslims in the lead-up to an October 15 referendum on Iraq's new constitution.

Insurgents have vowed to wreck the vote.

Thousands of US troops are currently waging two major offensives to try to put down al-Qaeda in its strongholds in the mostly Sunni northwest of Iraq.

Moderate Sunni Arab leaders are campaigning against the constitution, trying to defeat it at the polls because they say it will fragment Iraq into Shiite and Kurdish mini-states in the south and north, leaving Sunnis in a weakened central zone.

- AP