Insurgents hit bakery and mosque, Rumsfeld in Iraq

BAGHDAD - A suicide car bomber killed 13 people outside a Shi'ite mosque northeast of Baghdad Friday and gunmen shot dead nine people in a bakery in the capital in the latest sectarian attacks following the Jan. 30 election.

Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, on an unannounced visit to Iraq, warned it would take time for Iraqi security forces to crush the country's bloody insurgency.
Iraq's 60 per cent Shi'ite majority, oppressed for decades under Saddam Hussein, is expected to dominate Iraqi politics following last month's historic polls. Insurgents, most of whom are Sunni Muslim, have mounted repeated attacks on Shi'ites, sparking fears the country could slide toward civil war.

Rumsfeld, the highest-ranking American to visit since the election, landed before dawn in Mosul, 240 miles north of Baghdad. He told US soldiers the poll had been a good day for Iraq "but there are still challenges ahead."

Police said 13 people were killed and 40 wounded in Balad Ruz when a suicide car bomb exploded outside a mosque. Four of the dead were soldiers and at least three wounded were children.

"I wish to lose my sight so that I won't see another person after you, my dear," cried one mourning woman in hospital.

The worshippers had been leaving a Shi'ite ceremony for Ashura, one of the most holy events in the Shi'ite calendar that pays homage to the martyrdom of Imam Hussein in 680 AD.

Iraq plans to seal its borders next week to prevent pilgrims from flooding the country for the ceremony's climax. Last year suicide bombers blew themselves up among crowds of Ashura pilgrims in Baghdad and Kerbala, killing 171.

In Baghdad, gunmen burst into a Shi'ite bakery Friday, opening fire on workers and killing at least nine. The white walls, plastered with posters of Shi'ite clerics, were left smeared with blood.

"I was just leaving my house which faces the bakery when I saw them shooting. They were masked and shouting Allahu Akbar (God is Greatest) ... as they were shooting," witness Atheer Abdul Amir told Reuters.

SECTARIAN DIVISIONS

Millions of Iraqis defied suicide bombs and mortar attacks to vote. But partial results show a low turnout in Sunni areas, because of security fears and calls for a boycott.

A religious coalition blessed by Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the country's most revered Shi'ite cleric, has a commanding lead, with around half the 4.6 million votes counted so far. A coalition of Kurdish parties is in second place and a bloc led by interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi is third.

Iraq's Electoral Commission is making final checks on some 300 ballot boxes selected at random for extra scrutiny and hopes to deliver a final count in the next few days.

Attacks slowed briefly after the ballot, but suicide bombings this week in Baghdad, Baquba and Mosul have killed almost 50 police, soldiers and Iraqis hoping to join the security forces. Friday, the bodies of four men believed to be police were found in Haswa, south of Baghdad.

One policeman was killed in a drive-by shooting in Baquba 65 km north of Baghdad.

Thursday, insurgents fought a pitched battle with police in the town of Salman Pak, southeast of the capital. Police said 10 policemen and 20 insurgents were killed. At least 65 policemen were wounded.

US helicopters were sent in, and television footage showed burning police vehicles and scattered bodies. Police said those captured included three Iranians and two Saudi Arabians.

The Al Qaeda Organization for Holy War in Iraq, headed by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, claimed responsibility in an internet statement for Wednesday's kidnap of senior Interior Ministry official Colonel Riyadh Katei Aliwi.

Zarqawi's group is behind some of the bloodiest attacks against Shi'ites, Iraqi forces and US troops.

America has 150,000 servicemen and women in Iraq and says that rebuilding the country's army and police force is the fastest way to bring them home. Rumsfeld's trip was to see if progress has improved after earlier efforts failed to deliver.

"Many should not be expected to behave and operate as if they were battle-hardened veterans. But one day soon, they will be," he said. "They'll have to be because it is the Iraqis that are going to have to, over time, defeat the insurgency."

He later told reporters after a meeting with Allawi that the training was bearing fruit. "I was pleased with what I've been able to see," he said.

- REUTERS