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Tense day of prayers in Iraq
11/08/2006 12:22 - (SA)
Baghdad - Iraqi Sunnis and Shiites gathered at their respective mosques on Friday under the spectre of sectarian war after another day of carnage and a bomb attack on the holiest shrine of the Shiite faith.
At least 35 people were killed and more than 100 wounded on Thursday when a suicide bomber detonated an explosive vest at a police checkpoint outside the tomb of Imam Ali, a Shiite place of pilgrimage in the holy city of Najaf.
Clashes and bomb attacks killed at least 13 more in Baghdad and as night fell a mortar shell crashed out of the sky onto a cafe in a Shiite district north of the capital, killing six people playing dominos.
Government and Shiite leaders blamed Sunni extremists and fighters still loyal to the regime of ousted dictator Saddam Hussein for the Najaf blast, accusing them of fomenting violence between Iraq's rival Sunni and Shiite communities.
Shiite leader Abdelaziz Hakim, head of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, one of the pillars of the coalition government, demanded the right to form neighbourhood defence committees.
Large security operation
"The recurrence of such criminal acts confirms the perpetrators are takfiris (Sunni extremists), Baathists and the Saddamists who are aiming their dirty sectarian war against the descendants of the Prophet Mohammed," he said.
The government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, himself a Shiite, has in the past vowed to disarm unofficial militias, and is now engaged in a large security operation in Baghdad alongside US forces to root out death squads.
The US ambassador in Iraq, Kalmay Khalilzad, echoed calls from Iraqi leaders for the increasingly divided communities of Iraq to unite to oppose violence.
"Terrorists are the enemies of Iraqi unity, security, democracy and prosperity," he said in a statement released in the Iraqi capital.
"In addition to uniting, the best response to todays attack is for Iraqis with information about terrorist activities to provide it to the security forces," he added.
Measure of calm
Nevertheless, the bloodshed continued on Friday when insurgents detonated a roadside bomb as a police patrol passed the entrance to the northern town of Hawijah, killing two officers and wounding four.
And in the central, mainly Shiite town of Kut, undidentified gunmen opened fire on the offices of a Kurdish political party, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, wounding one guard and starting a fire inside, police said.
In Najaf itself, a measure of calm had returned, but cars were banned from the historic old city around Imam Ali's mausoleum as families prepared to bury their dead, an AFP correspondent in the city said.
US commanders estimate that 80% of the violence in Iraq is concentrated around the capital, which is increasing split on sectarian lines and plagued by attacks.
- SAPA
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