Iraq mosque blast kills 75, Shi'ite leader slain

UPDATE - 8.30am

NAJAF, Iraq - A car bombing killed at least 75 Iraqis, including a top Shi'ite Muslim leader, causing carnage at the Shi'ites' holiest shrine Friday and dealing a grave blow to the US occupation.

The blast tore through worshipers as they streamed out of Friday prayers in the Imam Ali mosque in the holy city of Najaf after a sermon by Ayatollah Mohammed Baqer al-Hakim, leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI).

It was the worst such atrocity in Iraq since the US-led war toppled Saddam Hussein in April.

In the aftermath, people burrowed into rubble strewn with body parts in a hunt for survivors. Volunteers screaming "God is Great" pulled out a severed foot and dug frantically around a deep crater filled with twisted metal and stinking black water.

Three gutted cars lay in the street by the mosque.

Some supporters of the slain Hakim blamed Saddam loyalists. But others pointed to bitter faction-fighting among the long-repressed Shi'ite majority that has raged since the war.

Hakim, 63, was for many the leading Shi'ite politician in Iraq. His pragmatic cooperation with the US-led administration through its Governing Council was seen as vital to US efforts to stabilize the country and install some form of democracy.

"We have at least 75 dead and that could go up to 80 because of severe injuries. There are 142 wounded," Safaa al-Aneedi, director of the Najaf teaching hospital, told Reuters.

Witnesses said Hakim was about to drive away from Friday prayers when the blast destroyed his car. Some witnesses said there had been more than one explosion.

A US military spokesman said that "no coalition forces were in the area ... because it is considered sacred ground."

Thousands of Shi'ites waving banners and pictures of Hakim later marched through Baghdad, many beating themselves in grief at the cleric's death. The Governing Council issued a statement calling for three days of mourning beginning Saturday.

"Criminal acts like these will only make the people more determined to continue on the path toward building a new Iraq," the statement said.

The attack was the latest in a series of bloody incidents in Najaf, several of them aimed at religious leaders of the Shi'ite branch of Islam followed by about 60 per cent of Iraqis.

Sunday, three men were killed in a bombing that injured Hakim's uncle, also a cleric associated with SCIRI. Some SCIRI supporters blamed that bomb on a rival Shi'ite leader, Moqtada al-Sadr, who opposes the presence of foreign troops in Iraq.

Another top cleric, fresh from exile, was hacked to death in the Imam Ali mosque a day after US troops took Baghdad.

The Shi'ite power struggle in Najaf is viewed as one of the keys to the future of Iraq. Washington is keen to discourage those Shi'ite leaders who favor Islamic clerical rule like that of Shi'ite Iran, where many lived in exile during Saddam's rule.

Many Iraqis belong to Saddam's once dominant Sunni minority or to other ethnic and religious groups like Christians and Kurds, and some worry about possible domination by the Shi'ites.

"There is a very serious chance that what we are entering here is a Shi'ite civil war akin to what happened in Iran in 1979-1980 with rival factions jockeying for power," said Ali Ansari, an expert on Iran at Britain's Durham University.

Hamid al-Bayati, SCIRI's man in London, said: "It could be Saddam loyalists using new techniques such as remote control or even suicide bombs, or it could be another extreme group.

"We proposed to the allies a long time ago ... to have a special security organization to protect the holy places and the religious scholars," he said. "The allies did not respond."

At the scene, some called for a stronger American presence around holy places where a few months ago Shi'ites demonstrated -- successfully -- to get the troops to steer clear.

"This is our holiest site," said Qusay Jaber. "If the Americans don't secure our sites anything is possible. We will stage an uprising."

Mohammed Baqer al-Hakim was tortured under Saddam's rule and spent more than 20 years in exile in Iran before returning to Iraq earlier this year after the US-led victory over Saddam.

"We deplore this horrible act of terrorist violence," said a White House official. "We will not be deterred in our efforts to help the Iraqi people rebuild their country and establish a representative democratic government."

Further north, guerrillas ambushed a US military convoy with rocket-propelled grenades Friday, killing one soldier and wounding three amid growing calls for a United Nations force to pacify the country.

A US Army spokesman said the six-vehicle convoy was hit on a main road near Baquba, part of the "Sunni Triangle" north and west of Baghdad which is a bastion of anti-occupation sentiment.

French President Jacques Chirac, one of the most vocal opponents of the US-led war on Iraq, urged Washington to begin transferring power to a provisional Iraqi government as a precondition for international help in rebuilding the country.

The Bush administration has signaled for the first time that it might agree to a UN-sponsored multinational force in Iraq.

- REUTERS


Herald Feature: Iraq