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Shi'ites furious over mosque bombing
A powerful bomb shattered the golden dome at one of Iraq's most revered Shiite shrines on Wednesday morning, setting off a day of sectarian fury in which mobs formed across Iraq to chant for revenge and attacked dozens of Sunni mosques.The bombing, at the Askariya shrine in Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, wounded no one but left the famous golden mosque dome at the site in ruins. Coming after two days of bloody attacks that have left dozens of Shiite civilians dead, the attack ignited a nationwide outpouring of rage and panic that seemed to bring Iraq closer than ever to open civil conflict. Shiite militia members flooded the streets of Baghdad, firing rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns at Sunni mosques while Iraqi army soldiers who had been called out to stop the violence stood nearby. By the day's end, mobs had struck or destroyed 27 Sunni mosques in the capital alone, killing three imams and kidnapping a fourth, Interior Ministry officials said. In all, at least 15 people were killed in related violence across the country. Thousands of grief-stricken people in Samarra crowded into the shrine's courtyard after the bombing, some weeping and kissing the fallen stones, others angrily chanting, "Our blood and souls we sacrifice for you, imams!" Iraq's major political and religious leaders issued urgent appeals for restraint, and Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari called for a three-day mourning period in a televised address. Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's most senior Shiite cleric, released an unusually strong statement in which he said, "If the government's security forces cannot provide the necessary protection, the believers will do it." Most Iraqi leaders attributed the attack to terrorists bent on exploiting sectarian rifts, but some also blamed the United States for failing to prevent it. Even the leader of Iraq's main Shiite political alliance said he thought Zalmay Khalilzad, the American ambassador to Iraq, bore some responsibility. The Shiite leader, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, said Khalilzad's veiled threat on Monday to withdraw American support if Iraqis cannot form a nonsectarian government helped provoke the bombing. "This declaration gave a green light for these groups to do their operation, so he is responsible for a part of that," Hakim said at a news conference. The attack in Samarra began at 7 a.m., when a dozen men dressed in paramilitary uniforms entered the shrine and handcuffed four guards who were sleeping in a back room, a spokesman for the provincial governor's office said. The attackers then placed a bomb in the dome and detonated it, collapsing most of the structure and damaging an adjoining wall. No group claimed responsibility for the attack, but some Iraqi officials quickly pointed a finger at al-Qaida in Mesopotamia, the terrorist group believed to be responsible for many of the attacks on Shiite civilians and mosques in the past two years. Samarra's population is mostly Sunni Arab, and it was a haven for insurgents until 2004, when American and Iraqi troops carried out a major operation to retake the city and the Golden Mosque from guerrilla fighters. But the insurgents have filtered back since then, and American troops in and around the city are now regularly attacked. Shops soon closed across the country as angry mobs filled the streets. Far to the north in Kirkuk, about 1,000 Shiites marched in the streets, chanting slogans against America, members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party, and Takfiris, a word used to describe militant Islamists who denounce other Muslims as infidels. Similar demonstrations broke out in Baquba, Najaf, Karbala and other cities. In Sadr City, the vast Shiite slum in Baghdad, flatbed trucks bristled with black-clad militia fighters carrying guns. Men with grenade launchers leaned out car windows, pointing at them menacingly. "If I could find the people who did this, I would cut him into pieces," said Abdel Jaleel al-Sudani, a 50-year-old employee of the Health Ministry, who said he had marched in a demonstration earlier. Posted by: Dan Darling 2006-02-23 |
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