Arrests Made In Iraq Mosque Blasts
Iraqi police have arrested four people in connection with the suicide bombing of two mosques near the Iranian border which killed at least 76 people, and one man appears to have been a third suicide bomber, police said.
A car bomb exploded Saturday in a market outside Baghdad killing at least seven people and wounding 18, police said.
The explosion occurred near the Diyala Bridge area just southeast of the Iraqi capital as dozens of people were shopping at a popular market, said police Col. Nouri Ashour. The dead included two women, he said.
On Friday, two suicide bombers wandered into the Sheik Murad mosque and the Grand Mosque in the border town of Khanaqin during noon prayers and detonated explosives strapped to their bodies, police and survivors said.
Reported death tolls on Saturday ranged from 76, provided by Kurdish officials, to at least 100, provided by police. Hospital officials said Friday that 74 people were killed and more than 100 injured in the largely Kurdish town, about 90 miles northeast of Baghdad.
It was the deadliest attack since Sept. 29, when three suicide car bombers struck in the mostly Shiite town of Balad just north of Baghdad, killing at least 99 people.
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A security officer in Khanaqin, who asked not to be identified because of the nature of his job, said four people were arrested following the blasts, three were strangers who came from outside the town and the fourth was a third suicide bomber who was found near the scene.
Khanaqin police had received information from the authorities in nearby Baqouba about a possible suicide bomber in the town, but it came just minutes before the attacks, he added.
The attack came just hours after two car bombs exploded outside the Hamra hotel Friday, in the second attack against a compound housing foreign journalists in the Iraqi capital in less than a month.
Elsewhere, the United Nations top human rights official added her voice Friday to calls for an international investigation into allegations that Iraq's U.S.-backed government tortures and abuses prisoners, including Sunni Arab insurgents.
In Khanaqin, the blast ripped down part of the roof of the Grand Mosque and heavily damaged the other place of worship. At sunset, dozens of people were still searching the rubble for missing family members and friends. Others collected shredded copies of the Muslim holy book, the Quran.
One of the survivors, Omar Saleh, said he was on his knees bowing in prayer when the bomb exploded at the Grand Mosque.
"The roof fell on us and the place was filled with dead bodies," Saleh, 73, said from his hospital bed.
Salem Ali Mohammed, 32, said he was in the mosque's washroom when he heard a strong explosion. "I thought a rocket had hit the mosque," he said. "I walked toward the prayer room and saw that the ceiling had collapsed and dead bodies were everywhere."
American soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division sent medical specialists and supplies to the town, located about six miles from the Iranian border.
In Baghdad, the attack on the Hamra hotel began about 8:12 a.m. when a white van exploded along the concrete blast wall protecting the compound, blowing a hole in the barrier. Less than a minute later, a water tanker packed with explosives plowed through the breach in an apparent bid to reach the hotel buildings.
But the driver, apparently blocked by smoke and debris, detonated his vehicle just inside the barrier, destroying several nearby homes and blowing out windows in the hotel. Eight Iraqis were killed and at least 43 people were injured, officials said.
"What we have here appears to be two suicide car bombs (that) attempted to breach the security wall in the vicinity of the hotel complex, and I think the target was the Hamra Hotel," U.S. Brig. Gen. Karl Horst told reporters at the scene.
News organizations housed at the Hamra include NBC News and The Boston Globe.
The tactics in the Hamra attack were similar to those employed in the Oct. 24 triple vehicle assault on the Palestine Hotel, where The Associated Press, Fox News and other organizations live and work. In that attack, which killed 17 Iraqis, one of vehicles blew a hole in a concrete blast wall, opening the way for a cement truck packed with explosives to penetrate the compound.
But the tactic didn't work Friday. The second vehicle —- a water tanker —- got stuck in the debris from the explosions and exploded before reaching the target, reports CBS News correspondent Kimberly Dozier.
The latest attacks in Khanaqin and Baghdad have brought to at least 1,617 the number of Iraqis killed since the Shiite-led government took power April 28, according to an Associated Press count. At least 3,429 have been injured.