Suicide attack on Iraqi Shi’ite mosque kills 11

By Luke Baker

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – A suicide car bomber blew himself up
outside a Shi’ite mosque north of Baghdad on Friday, killing 11
and wounding 24, the latest attack in a three-day surge of
violence that has killed more than 200 people.

The blast came two days after Iraq’s al Qaeda leader, Abu
Musab al-Zarqawi, declared an all-out war on the country’s
Shi’ite Muslim majority.

Iraqi police Captain Saed Ahmed said the bomb went off
outside the Great Prophet mosque in Tuz Khurmatu, a mixed Sunni
and Shi’ite town 160 km (100 miles) north of the capital, as
worshippers were emerging from prayers on the Muslim holy day.

He said a Saudi wearing an explosives-laden belt, who was
apparently working with the bomber, was arrested soon after.

Militants have frequently attacked Shi’ite mosques over the
past 18 months in an apparent attempt to goad Iraq’s Shi’ite
majority into retaliation and spark a sectarian civil war with
the Sunni Arab minority, once dominant under Saddam Hussein.

There was more violence in Baghdad, where gunmen shot dead
two labourers and a government official in drive-by shootings.

Police said the gunmen, traveling in two cars, opened fire
on a group of men near the Shi’ite area of Sadr City as they
lined up to find jobs, killing two and wounding a dozen.
Minutes later they shot and killed a transport ministry
official.

Also in Sadr City, gunmen shot dead a Shi’ite prayer leader
and wounded two relatives after following his car, police said.

South of Baghdad, a car bomber targeted a police convoy in
the town of Hasswa, killing three police and wounding six. West
of the capital, a roadside bomb killed four Iraqi troops.

The attacks followed two days of heavy bloodshed, including
more than a dozen coordinated car bombings in Baghdad on
Wednesday that killed about 150 people and wounded hundreds.

Wednesday was the deadliest day of bombings in Baghdad
since the beginning of the U.S.-led war and underlined just how
hard U.S. forces are finding it to maintain security in the
capital and elsewhere more than 2-1/2 years after they invaded.

CIVIL WAR?

The campaign of attacks, many of them claimed by al Qaeda
in Iraq came in response to a U.S.-Iraqi military offensive on
the northern town of Tal Afar, for long a rebel stronghold.

Several thousand Iraqi troops, backed by U.S. armored units
and warplanes, launched the assault on the town, near the
Syrian border, more than two weeks ago. On Friday, an Iraqi
officer said 95 percent of Tal Afar had been secured.

U.S. troops were letting residents who fled the fighting
return to their homes, although only on foot, witnesses said.

A top U.S. military spokesman said Tal Afar marked just the
beginning of what may be a new series of U.S.-backed offensives
on rebel towns and cities designed to capture or kill Zarqawi
and increase security ahead of a referendum next month when
Iraqis will vote on a controversial proposed constitution.

Following Wednesday’s violence, the Jordanian Zarqawi
issued a recorded message on the Internet threatening an open
war on Shi’ites, a move Iraqis fear could push the country
closer to a full-blown civil war, with sectarian conflict
already common.

However, President Jalal Talabani played down the threat of
fighting among Iraq’s Shi’ite Arab, Sunni Arab and Kurdish
populations, telling reporters at the United Nations World
Summit in New York that foreigners were responsible.

“We have no war among Iraqis,” Talabani said. “We have some
thousands of criminals who came from outside the country,
fighting against our people, trying to kill civilians and
innocent people.”

Shi’ite religious leaders, including Grand Ayatollah Ali
al-Sistani, the most senior Shi’ite cleric in Iraq, also insist
their community will not be drawn into a civil war.

While foreign fighters have entered the country and many
are believed to be aligned to Zarqawi, there are also many
Iraqi nationalist insurgents, largely from the Sunni Arab
minority, who have carried out attacks on Shi’ites. Shi’ite
militias have also attacked and killed Sunnis in retaliation.

Talabani and other political leaders are hoping the draft
constitution, drawn up principally by the Shi’ites and Kurds,
who dominate the government, will draw the nation together and
isolate guerrillas opposed to the political process.

The constitution, which some Sunni leaders say does not
reflect their wishes for the country, is due to be put to a
referendum on October 15. If two-thirds of voters in three or
more of Iraq’s 18 provinces vote “No,” the document will be
rejected.

In other developments, the U.S. military said a Marine was
killed by a mortar attack on a base in Ramadi, west of Baghdad,
on Thursday, raising the number of troops to have died in Iraq
since the invasion to 1,897. More than 13,000 have been
wounded.

(Additional reporting by Mariam Karouny, Hiba Moussa and
Aseel Kami in Baghdad, Aref Mohammed in Kirkuk, and Faris
Mehdawi in Baquba)