http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/08/world/middleeast/08iraq.html?hp&ex=1144468800&en=c271c8ba41221afe&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Suicide Bombers Kill at Least 71 at Shiite Mosque By EDWARD WONG Published: April 8, 2006 BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 7 - Three suicide bombers, including at least one who appeared to be a woman, exploded in a sea of Friday worshipers at the main mosque of the most powerful Shiite political party in Iraq, killing at least 71 people and wounding at least 140. Enlarge This Image Christoph Bangert/Polaris, for The New York Times Two of the suicide bombers, both men, managed to enter the mosque before setting off their explosives, and the third, a woman, blew herself up at the building's entrance, witnesses said. Multimedia Video Report Enlarge This Image Thaier Al-Sudani/Reuters A man injured in a suicide bombing of a mosque is taken to hospital in Baghdad. Shiite and Sunni leaders called for restraint, fearful that the attack would unleash a wave of sectarian violence like the one that left hundreds dead following the bombing of a revered Shiite shrine in February. The attack came as the American ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, said in an interview with the BBC that if a unified government was not formed soon, a sectarian war could erupt in Iraq and that such a war could engulf the entire Middle East. The explosions at the historic Baratha Mosque, in northern Baghdad, took place right after the mosque's head imam, Sheik Jalaladeen al-Sagheir, delivered a searing speech there, demanding that the incumbent prime minister step down. The blasts scattered bodies across the courtyard, destroyed stalls of vendors selling religious texts and ripped turquoise tiles from the walls. The mosque loudspeaker blared a message urging people to donate blood, while police commandos piled charred bodies into pickup trucks. A white blanket covering one body was so soaked with blood that someone tossed a black cloth over it. People sifted through pools of blood and filled handcarts with shoes and body parts. "I was inside, so I fell to the ground," said Nadhum al-Bahadeli, a businessman whose white shirt was splattered with blood across one shoulder, as he helped to clear debris. "Other people were beneath me. When I stood up, I saw lots of dead people scattered across the courtyard, both men and women." A guard showed a reporter a piece of scalp with long brown hair, which he said came from the first bomber, who he described a woman in black robes who had detonated her explosives at the outer gate. Panic erupted then, he said, and worshipers who had been trying to leave streamed back toward the main courtyard. Two other bombers slipped in during the chaos and detonated their explosives near the separate prayer areas for men and women, mosque and security officials said. Sheik Sagheir said some initial reports indicated that at least one of the bombers might have been a man dressed as a woman. The well-guarded Baratha Mosque is the main religious stronghold of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, an Iranian-backed party that leads Parliament's major Shiite political bloc. It was clear that the explosions went to the very heart of the Shiites' long-held feeling that they are victims, as had scores of other attacks in the past three years of civil strife. On Thursday, a car bomb exploded just hundreds of yards from the golden-domed Imam Ali mosque in Najaf, killing at least 10 people in what appeared to be an attempt to provoke a bloody cycle of reprisals. "The Shia are being targeted in this dirty sectarian war," Sheik Sagheir said in a telephone interview with the television network Al Arabiya. "The world is watching as if what is happening means nothing." The sheik said there were reports that one of the bombers had been trying to go to the imam's office. In his Friday Prayer speech, the white-turbaned Sheik Sagheir had called for the prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, to withdraw his bid to hold on to his job in the next government. "There are rules in the political game, and he who can't read them will lose," Sheik Sagheir said. Last Sunday, the sheik said in a telephone interview that Mr. Jaafari should abdicate to break the deadlock in forming a new government, a demand that fractured the religious Shiite bloc, which dominates the Parliament. Sheik Sagheir's party, the Supreme Council, is offering one of its deputies, Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi, as the new nominee for prime minister. Mr. Mahdi lost to Mr. Jaafari by one vote in a secret ballot in February among the 130 members of the Shiite bloc. Mr. Jaafari has the backing of Moktada al-Sadr, a rebellious cleric who despises the Supreme Council. Both Mr. Sadr and the Supreme Council have formidable militias that have clashed in open street battles. But the mosque attack appeared to be the work of jihadists aligned with the Sunni-led insurgency rather than violence between Shiites. Followers of Mr. Sadr were at the compound talking politics with mosque officials right after Friday Prayer, and may well have ended up among the dead or wounded. In addition, the tactic of suicide bombings in Iraq is traditionally associated with Sunni extremists - even during two fierce uprisings in 2004 against the Americans, Mr. Sadr's militiamen did not use suicide bombings. Skip to next paragraph Enlarge This Image Assad Muhsin/Associated Press Iraqi men carry the body of a victim of an attack on a Shiite mosque in Baghdad. Multimedia Video Report "Those who did this are trying to bend our people from continuing on their course," said Maj. Gen. Muhammad Neima, the head of the operations room at the Interior Ministry, as he stood amid the wreckage. "But the people of this country have grown accustomed for a while now to being slaughtered, and we feel proud that we're sacrificing ourselves and are getting closer to God." He added, "The suicide bombers have turned themselves into gatekeepers to heaven." Talks to form a full, four-year government have been stalled for months. The main stumbling block now is Mr. Jaafari. The Sunni Arab, Kurdish and secular blocs in the 275-member Parliament have demanded that the Shiites force Mr. Jaafari to withdraw. The American and British governments have also increased the pressure, with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Jack Straw, the British foreign minister, visiting last weekend to demand a quick resolution. But in recent days, Mr. Jaafari has insisted that he will stay in power because he was chosen in a democratic process. In his BBC interview, Mr. Khalilzad, the American ambassador, again stressed the need for Iraqi leaders to reach a compromise. "There has been no agreement yet on the composition of the new government, and this has to happen as quickly as possible," he said. "I think the patience of the Iraqi people as well as the patience of the international community is running out." Mr. Khalilzad said the negotiations showed that leaders from different factions had been opening up to each other, but that Iraqis in mixed Sunni-Shiite areas of Iraq were growing further apart in a "polarization along sectarian lines, which is very dangerous." He warned of the danger of civil war, saying: "Whatever you thought of whether the West, the coalition, should have come in here or not - now not to do everything humanly possible to make this country work would have the most serious consequences for the Iraqis for sure, but also for the region and for the world. A sectarian war in Iraq, perhaps drawing regional players, affecting the entire region, would be extremely negative." Since the Samarra shrine bombing of Feb. 22, tens of thousands of Iraqis have moved from their homes, with Sunni Arabs going to Sunni areas and Shiites heading to Shiite enclaves like Najaf. Some are squatting in abandoned buildings, and a crisis of food and water shortages is growing, international aid officials say. Meanwhile, tit-for-tat killings by death squads continue in Baghdad and elsewhere, as scores of bodies with bullets to the head turn up every week. At Friday Prayer in the Kufa mosque, Mr. Sadr blamed the American presence and demanded a timetable for withdrawal. For the first time, he suggested a phased departure, with the Americans first leaving the cities and moving to their bases. Parliament should also ban the American military from using the air, he said. An American marine was reported shot to death on Thursday by an Iraqi Army soldier at a base near Al Qaim, near the western border, the military said Friday. The Iraqi soldier was wounded in the episode and is in serious condition at a base in Balad, officials said. The Marine Corps is investigating. Another marine was killed by "enemy action" in Anbar Province on Thursday, the military said. A soldier died Thursday from a homemade bomb explosion near Baiji, to the north, and another died Friday from injuries suffered in a small-arms attack in western Baghdad. The military said American soldiers accidentally killed an Iraqi man in the northwest of the country on Wednesday with a mortar round aimed at insurgents. An Iraqi employee of The New York Times contributed reporting for this article. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] Post message: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe : [EMAIL PROTECTED] List owner : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Homepage : http://proletar.8m.com/ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
