Shrine Blast Spawns Mass Reprisals
A large explosion Wednesday heavily damaged the golden dome of one of Iraq's most famous Shiite shrines, sending protesters into the streets and triggering reprisal attacks against Sunni mosques. It was the third major attack against Shiite targets in as many days.
Shiite leaders called for calm, but militants attacked at least six Sunni mosques in the capital and two in Basra. A gunfight broke out between Shiite militiamen and guards at a Sunni political party in Basra, and army Capt. Jassim al-Wahash said about 500 soldiers were sent to Sunni neighborhoods in Baghdad to prevent clashes between Shiites and Sunnis.
No group claimed responsibility for the early morning attack on the Askariya shrine in this city 60 miles north of Baghdad. But suspicion fell on Sunni extremist groups such as al Qaeda in Iraq of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
The Interior Ministry said four men, one wearing military uniform and three in black, entered the mosque early Wednesday and detonated two bombs, one of which collapsed the dome and damaged part of the northern wall of the shrine.
A government statement said "several suspects" had been detained and some of them "might have had been involved in carrying out the crime." CBS News correspondent Kimberly Dozier reports ten suspects have already been arrested.
Police believed some people might be buried under the debris after the 6:55 a.m. explosion but there were no confirmed figures. The shrine contains the tombs of two revered Shiite imams, both descendants of the Prophet Muhammad, and is among Iraq's most sacred sites for Shiite Muslims.
The attack on such a major religious shrine threatened to enflame sectarian passions at a time when talks among Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds on a new government have bogged down. The attack "could do more to drive the country toward civil war than all the suicide bombings against the Shiite community combined," Dozier reports.
In other recent developments:
President Bush urged restraint among rival religious factions and pledged American help to restore the shrine.
"The terrorists in Iraq have again proven that they are enemies of all faiths and of all humanity," the president said in a written statement. "The world must stand united against them, and steadfast behind the people of Iraq."
U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and the top American commander in Iraq, Gen. George Casey, called the bombings a deliberate attempt to foment sectarian strife and warned it was a "critical moment for Iraq."
Major Sunni groups also joined in the condemning the attack. The Sunni clerical Muslim Scholars called the bombing a "criminal act," and a Sunni political alliance blamed "evil people" for trying to divide Iraq.
In Baghdad, National Security Adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie pointed to religious zealots such as al Qaeda terror network and Ansar al-Sunnah, telling Al Arabiya television that the attack was an attempt "to pull Iraq toward civil war."
The country's most revered Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, sent instructions to his followers forbidding attacks on Sunni mosques, especially the major ones in Baghdad. He called seven days of mourning, his aides said.
Al-Sistani later and Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdul-Mahdi later hinted that religious militias could be given a bigger security role if the government is not capable of protecting holy shrines like the one attacked in Samarra.
U.S. and Iraqi forces sealed off all streets leading to the main Sunni mosque in Baghdad, Abu Hanifa, in the mostly Sunni Azamiyah neighborhood.
Shiite leaders in surrounding countries, including Iran's most influential cleric body, the Qom Shiite Seminary, were also quick to respond.
"Ayatollahs in Qom have condemned the explosion and announced one day of public mourning," Hashem Hosseini, head of the seminary, told the state-run television.
Following the blast, U.S. and Iraqi forces surrounded the shrine and began searching houses in the area. Five police officers responsible for protecting the mosque were taken into custody, said Col. Bashar Abdullah, chief of police commandoes in Samarra.
Large protests erupted in Shiite parts of Baghdad and in cities throughout the Shiite heartland to the south. In Basra, Shiite militants traded rifle and rocket-propelled grenade fire with guards at the office of the Sunni-led Iraqi Islamic Party.
Merchants in the holy city of Najaf closed their shops, and about 1,000 people marched through the streets waving Iraqi flags and shouting religious slogans.
In Baghdad's Sadr City, thousands of Shiites, some brandishing Kalashnikov rifles, marched through the streets shouting anti-American slogans.
All mosques in the Shiite city of Diwaniyah, 80 miles south of Baghdad began broadcasting "Allahu akbar," or "God is Great" from loudspeakers and urged people to turn out in the streets. All markets, shops and stores closed, police Maj. Muhammad Ali said.
About 3,000 people marched the Shiite city of Kut, chanting anti-American and anti-Israeli slogans and burning U.S. and Israeli flags. Crowds hurled stones at two Sunni mosques in Basra. The Iraqi Islamic Party, the country's largest Sunni political group, said at least 60 mosques were attacked, burned or taken over by Shiites. A leading Sunni politician, Tariq al-Hashimi, urged clerics and politicians to calm the situation "before it spins out of control."
In the capital, the biggest attack against a Sunni mosque occurred in the Baladiyat area of eastern Baghdad, where about 40 Shiite militiamen sprayed the building with automatic fire. One street vendor was killed in another mosque attack.
Radical Iraqi Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr cut short a visit to Lebanon and left by road for Syria, where he was expected to travel back to Iraq, Lebanese officials said.
In Samarra, thousands of demonstrators gathered near the shrine, waving Iraqi flags, Shiite religious banners and copies of the Muslim holy book, Quran.
"This criminal act aims at igniting civil strife," said Mahmoud al-Samarie, a 28-year-old builder who was among the crowd. "We demand an investigation so that the criminals who did this be punished. If the government fails to do so, then we will take arm and chase the people behind this attack."
President Jalal Talabani condemned the attack and called for restraint, saying the attack was designed to sabotage talks on a government of national unity following the Dec. 15 parliamentary election.
Talabani urged religious and political leaders to speak out strongly against the attack.
Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari urged all Iraqis to condemn the attack and urged both Muslim and Christian leaders abroad "to redouble their efforts to help the Iraqi government stop these saboteurs."
Tradition says the Askariya shrine, which draws Shiite pilgrims from throughout the Islamic world, is near the place where the last of the 12 Shiite imams, Mohammed al-Mahdi, disappeared. Al-Mahdi, known as the "hidden imam," was the son and grandson of the two imams buried in the Askariya shrine.
Shiites believe he is still alive and will return to restore justice to humanity. An attack at such an important religious shrine would constitute a grave assault on Shiite Islam at a time of rising sectarian tensions in Iraq. The golden dome was completed in 1905.