Suicide bomber kills 36 at Shi'ite mosque

A suicide bomber struck a Shi'ite mosque during a funeral in the northern city of Mosul, killing up to 36 people and wounding more than 100 in a fresh attack against Iraq's newly-empowered majority.

"As we were inside the mosque, we saw a ball of fire and heard a huge explosion," said Tahir Abdullah Sultan, 45. "After that blood and pieces of flesh were scattered around the place." At least 16 were wounded, said Col. Adnan Al-Jabouri, a spokesman for the Ministry of Interior in Baghdad.

The attack took place in the city's mainly Shi'ite district of Tel Afar district. Mosul, the country's third largest city about 350 kilometres north of Baghdad, has become a centre of intense guerrilla activity in recent months. Iraqi officials identify it as a major route for money and weapons coming across the Syrian border. They also suspect that many of the fighters thought to have fled Falluja prior to the US assault of that city in November travelled to Mosul.

Shiite mosques and funerals have become targets for insurgents. A wave of bombings last month during the celebration of Ashoura, the holiest day on the Shi'ite religious calendar, killed about 100.

At the behest of Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, the highest ranking Shia cleric in the country, Shiites have largely abstained from taking revenge against minority Sunnis, who make up the largest group involved with the insurgency. Many Shiites identify their attackers not simply as Sunnis but as former members of the now-banned Baath Party of Saddam Hussein or as Salafists, members of a radical strain of Sunni Islam, similar to that preached by Osama bin Laden. Salafists view Shiites as apostates.

Mosul had been largely quiet until last year, when the US military's 101st Airborne Division withdrew from the area. The 101st, which had been responsible for the area since the invasion 2003, had maintained about 20,000 troops in the area, and were replaced by a force of about 8,000. At the time, Mosul residents expressed fear the withdrawal might lead to chaos in the city.

Also in Mosul yesterday, insurgents killed the son of the city's police chief, Mohammed Ahmed al-Jabouri. Jabouri has become well-known in Iraq for his television appearances both issuing threats and deadlines to insurgents, and also on a programme on the country's state-run station in which captured insurgents confess to crimes, often in the presence of victims' families.

In Baghdad yesterday, gunmen killed at least five police officers in two separate attacks. Jabouri said insurgents dressed in police uniforms had set up a checkpoint in a southern Baghdad neighbourhood to carry out one of the shootings.

- INDEPENDENT