14 Killed in Explosion Near Baghdad Mosque
Jan 21, 9:04 AM (ET)
By BASSEM MROUE
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - A car bomb exploded outside a Shiite mosque in Baghdad
Friday where worshippers were celebrating a major Muslim holiday, killing at
least 14 people and wounding 40, police and hospital officials said, the
country's latest violence in the lead-up to this month's elections.
The car blew up outside the al-Taf mosque in the capital's southwest, where
Shiites were celebrating one of Islam's most important holidays, Eid al-Adha,
or Feast of Sacrifice. The feast coincides with the yearly pilgrimage to Mecca
in Saudi Arabia.
Attacks on Shiites have increased in the run-up to Iraq's Jan. 30 parliamentary
and provincial elections. Friday's blast was the second outside a Shiite mosque
in the capital this week and it came a day after a chief terror leader in Iraq
berated Shiites in an Internet audio recording that appeared aimed at sowing
division in the country.
Iraq's Shiites - a community that was oppressed for decades - strongly supports
the vote, believing it will propel them to a position of influence equal to
their standing as the country's majority group. They make up about 60 percent
of the Iraq's 26 million people.
(AP) U.S. soldiers and the Iraqi police secure the area following a car bomb
explosion in front of a...
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But militants among the Sunni Arab minority - which lost privilege when their
patron Saddam Hussein was toppled - have vowed to stop the vote. Some Sunni
clerics and politicians have called for a boycott of the vote, saying violence
in Sunni areas will keep people from the polls and skew the outcome of the
balloting against them.
An official at Baghdad's al-Yarmouk Hospital said the blast at the mosque
killed at least 14 people and wounded 40 others.
In a separate attack, a dozen gunmen stormed a police station west of Baghdad
on Friday, placed explosives inside and blew it up, said Iraqi police Capt.
Abdullah al-Hiti. The station in Hit, some 100 miles west of Baghdad, was
nearly empty because of the Muslim holiday; no one was hurt.
In a new Internet audio recording purportedly from Iraq's most feared terror
leader, Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the speaker denounced Iraqi
Shiites for fighting alongside U.S. troops.
Al-Zarqawi, the leader of Iraq's al-Qaida affiliate, ridiculed Iraq's most
prominent Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, and berated Shiites
for fighting alongside American troops against their Sunni countrymen in
Fallujah in November.
(AP) An Iraqi policeman secures the area following a car bomb explosion in
front of a Shiite mosque in...
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"They broke into the safe houses of God," the speaker said of Shiites. "They
defiled them and they hung the photos of their Satan, al-Sistani, on the walls
and they spitefully wrote: 'Today, your land; tomorrow it will be your honor.'"
The authenticity of the tape could not be verified.
Friday's car bomb exploded as worshippers were leaving the building, a witness
said. The blast left several cars in flames and showered the area with charred
debris.
At al-Yarmouk Hospital, dozens of weeping men and women franticly searched for
news about loved ones feared caught up in the bombing.
A distraught man sat beside his dead 14-year-old son, covered with a sheet, and
cried out, "I had breakfast with him this morning. I told him, 'Let's go to
your grandfather,' but he insisted on going for prayers first."
(AP) U.S. soldiers and the Iraqi police secure the area following a car bomb
explosion in front of a...
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A woman dressed in a black cloak, or abaya, fainted as she identified the body
of her son in the hospital's morgue. She was carried away by relatives.
In the 90-minute message posted on the Web Thursday, al-Zarqawi called on his
followers to show patience and prepare for a long struggle against the
Americans, promising that "ferocious wars ... take their time" but that victory
was assured.
Al-Zarqawi's al-Qaida in Iraq group was responsible for kidnapping and
beheading several foreigners, including Americans, before the fall of their
Fallujah base. The United States has offered a $25 million reward for
al-Zarqawi's capture or death - the same amount as for Osama bin Laden.
A U.S. soldier was killed Friday during a pre-dawn raid north of Baghdad, the
military said.
The soldier from Army's 1st Infantry Division, whose name was withheld pending
notification of his family, was killed in an operation to kill or capture
members of an insurgent bomb-making cell in the town of Ad Duluiyah, the
military said in a statement.
One Iraqi was killed in the raid and another soldier was wounded.
Near the central city of Samarra, saboteurs set an oil pipeline on fire, police
said. The pipeline, some 10 miles south of the city, links the northern Beiji
refinery to Baghdad's Dora refinery.
The pipeline was attacked in the past by insurgents who've taken aim at the oil
industry to deprive the government of badly needed reconstruction money.
In a separate statement, al-Zarqawi's group claimed responsibility for a
Thursday explosion that injured five British soldiers and an undetermined
number of Iraqis at a supply base in southern Iraq outside the port city of
Basra. A Web statement said the attack was a suicide operation in retaliation
for alleged British abuse of Iraqi prisoners.
The authenticity of that statement also could not be determined, and the
British military gave no reason for the blast. Three British soldiers are on
trial at a British base in Germany for allegedly abusing Iraqi prisoners in May
2003.
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