Iraq mosque bomb death toll rises to 87 - coroner

NAJAF - The death toll from a car bomb blast outside a mosque in the Iraqi holy city of Najaf has risen to 87 people, the city's coroner said on Saturday.

The bomb detonated as worshippers were streaming out of Friday prayers at the Imam Ali mosque, Shi'ite Islam's holiest shrine.

"The dead as of now are 87," said Isa Muhammad al-Wailee, the city's forensic pathologist. "Altogether I think there are well more than 200 wounded."

The blast killed leading Shi'ite politician Ayatollah Mohammed Baqer al-Hakim, who had returned from exile after the war which ousted Saddam Hussein and had co-operated with Iraq's US-led administration.

The leaves no doubt Washington faces an uphill task to create a stable Iraq.

Its troops will be on high alert -- if discreetly in the background -- Saturday when Ayatollah Mohammed Baqer al-Hakim is expected to be buried in the holy Shi'ite city of Najaf.

President Bush returns from vacation on Saturday. With his re-election fight just a year away, analysts say he must act quickly to calm fears that Iraq is turning sour.

The third major bombing there this month left a field of potential culprits as wide as the Baghdad attacks on the embassy of Jordan, an Arab friend of the United States, and on the headquarters of the United Nations, to which Washington is increasingly looking to share the burden of postwar occupation.

Some analysts say all three could be the work of anti-US forces out to wreck Bush's efforts to create a friendly Iraq. Friday's blast could also have quite different roots, however.

The Imam Ali mosque in the holy city of Najaf, south of the capital is the most sacred site for Shi'ites, who form a 60 per cent majority of Iraq's population.

Supporters of the slain Ayatollah Hakim, 63, leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) which has been cooperating with the US authorities, blamed diehard loyalists of Saddam Hussein, a Sunni, under whose largely secular rule the Shi'ites were heavily oppressed.

SCIRI, once fostered by the anti-American Shi'ite rulers of neighboring Iran, had taken a pragmatic approach to dealing with the US occupation, taking up a seat on the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council as a first step toward self rule.

FACTION FIGHTING

Similar shadowy groups, possibly operating in concert with foreign Islamists from the likes of al Qaeda, were widely blamed for the Jordanian and UN attacks, as well as the killings of dozens of US and British soldiers since the war in April.

As worrying for the prospects of stability in the nation of 26 million may be the accusations in some quarters that the Najaf bombing was another symptom of bitter faction fighting among Shi'ite leaders. One cleric, like Hakim newly returned from exile, was hacked to death in the same mosque in April.

A relative of Hakim was wounded in a bomb attack last week, spurring accusations against another Shi'ite leader, Moqtada al-Sadr, who has criticized the US occupation in strong terms. Sadr, a youthful radical, denies involvement in the violence.

"It's a blow to (US-led) coalition efforts to encourage moderate Shi'ites," said Toby Dodge, an Iraq expert at Britain's Warwick University. "It's also a dire and public warning to all Iraqis with links to the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority and a drive to heighten sectarian tensions."

The Shi'ites, predominant in areas south of Baghdad, are looking to US plans for representative democracy to give them the upper hand in Iraq after centuries of repression.

But mindful of the big non-Shi'ite minority, Washington is anxious to ensure the Shi'ites' numbers do not create problems, notably with the Sunni Arabs to the north of the capital, where much of the anti-American, pro-Saddam violence is concentrated. US officials have also made clear they will oppose those Shi'ite clerics whose idea of democracy is clerical rule like that in Shi'ite Iran, still on Washington's "axis of evil" list.

Bush's administration, facing new questions at home over the wisdom of occupying Iraq in defiance of many of Washington's closest allies, insisted that the worst carnage since the fall of Saddam in early April would not deter them.

"We remain resolved to defeat terrorism and continue to work to bring a better life for the Iraqi people," White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan said of the Najaf bombing.

The United States, as the main occupying power, is ultimately responsible under international law for security in Iraq. But a State Department official said the Iraqi Interior Ministry would be the lead agency in the investigation.

Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld, in a separate statement, did not mention the United States at all. He said:

"As success during this period of transition continues to mount, the opponents of success and of a free Iraq may continue their desperate acts. But the outcome is not in doubt."

Bush is keen for other nations to step forward and help US forces in Iraq but has been resisting calls from opponents of the war, such as France, Russia and Germany, that Washington hand over much of the responsibility for the country to the UN

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow had drafted a new UN resolution on the issue, which had been discussed with Berlin and with Secretary of State Colin Powell:

"Our positions on this are getting closer," Putin said.

France and Russia called for a quick return to Iraqi rule.

Friday's blast tore through worshippers as they streamed out of prayers where Ayatollah Hakim had been preaching. It left rescuers scrabbling through the rubble for body parts.

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 from Saturday.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq