Blast kills 20 inside Iraqi mosque
2013-01-23 19:47
Baghdad - A suicide bomber killed at least 20 people
inside a Shi'ite mosque in northern Iraq on Wednesday after detonating his
explosives in the middle of a crowded funeral ceremony.
The attack on a sensitive religious target came as
Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki faces pressure from mass Sunni protests
that are heightening fears the Opec country risks sliding back into widespread
sectarian confrontation.
"A suicide bomber at one mosque killed and wounded
tens of people. We don't know who is behind this," Amin Aziz, deputy
governor of Salahuddin province, told Reuters.
"We don't have a clear toll yet."
Police, who were still rescuing victims from the bomb
site, said at least 20 were killed and 35 more wounded in the attack on Tuz
Khurmato, a religiously and ethnically mixed city 170km north of the capital
Baghdad.
A year after the last US troops left the country, Sunni
Islamist insurgents tied to al-Qaeda still carry out major bomb attacks to stir
up the kind of Shi'ite-Sunni confrontation that killed thousands in 2006-2007.
Maliki, a Shi'ite, is struggling to calm weeks of
protests by Sunni while his fragile government, split among the Shi'ite
majority, Sunnis and ethnic Kurds, is deadlocked in a crisis over power
sharing.
