Bloody bombings claim 69

2006-04-07 18:05

Baghdad - Three suicide bombers killed at least 69 people and wounded about 130 others as worshippers left a Shi'ite mosque in Baghdad after weekly Friday prayers, in the second major attack on Iraq's majority community in as many days.

The blasts took place outside northern Baghdad's Baratha mosque where the imam, or prayer leader, Sheikh Jalaluddin al-Saghir, is an MP with the Shi'ite United Iraqi Alliance, the largest bloc in the Iraqi parliament.

Immediately after the attack Iraqi authorities appealed on state television for public blood donations. A health ministry source was quoted as saying the bombings killed 69 people and wounded another 130.

An Iraqi security official told AFP that two of the bombers were disguised as women.

Iraqi and United States military forces quickly cordoned off the entire area as dozens of pick-up trucks, ambulances and private vehicles started to ferry the victims to hospitals.

Fears for civil war

Victims were also carried away in handcarts and blankets, as men, beating their chests in grief, searched for relatives who had attended the prayers at the mosque.

Patches of blood and dozens of shoes were left scattered outside the entrance of the mosque where the bombers blew themselves up in the midst of the departing worshippers.

The triple attack followed a car bombing on Thursday that killed 10 people in the Shi'ite shrine city of Najaf and came amid a political deadlock as Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari refused pressure to step down.

The latest bombings evoked the February 22 dynamiting of a Shi'ite shrine in the northern town of Samarra that triggered Shi'ite reprisals against Sunnis across Iraq.

Hundreds died in the ensuing tit-for-tat killings between the two religious groups, raising fears of civil war.

In Thursday's attack in Najaf, a car bomb exploded close to the revered Imam Ali shrine and near the offices of senior cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

In his Friday sermon, radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada Sadr blamed the US forces for Thursday's Najaf bombing.

"This is not the first time that the occupation forces and their death squads have resorted to killings," the cleric said referring to the Najaf bombing.

Sadr also blamed the US-led coalition forces for Iraq's recent wave of communal violence, charging that the United States was "killing religious Shi'ite clerics in order to start a sectarian strife".

On Friday, Iraqi authorities were not taking chances and increased the number of guards and checkpoints to curb any outbreak of violence in Najaf.

Almost four months after its national election, Iraqi leaders have failed to come up with a working cabinet due to bitter wrangling between various parliamentary blocs on ministerial posts and Jaafari's candidacy.

A pause was expected in bargaining over the next government as Iraq observes a four-day weekend to celebrate the third anniversary of the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime on April 9 and the birthday of Prophet Muhammad on April 10.

- AFP