World

Bomb Kills 8 At Baghdad Mosque

April 22, 2005 / 12:22 PM EDT / CBS/AP

A car bomb exploded during Friday prayers at a Shiite mosque in Baghdad, killing eight people and wounding 20, police said.

The blast happened during midday prayers at Al-Subeih mosque, in the capital's eastern New Baghdad neighborhood, said police Col. Ahmed Aboud. Witnesses said a car parked outside the building since the morning exploded.

One section of the mosque collapsed, and frantic worshippers in blood-spattered clothes searched through the rubble for loved ones, as wailing women beat their chest in grief. Body parts littered the ground. One man clutched a child's foot, shaking and weeping.

"I was inside the mosque when the explosion happened, and I saw many dead and injured," said another worshipper, grocery store owner Abdelallah Faraj. "This is a cowardly and savage act that aims to create conflict among Iraqis."

Police sealed off the area. The U.S. military had no immediate comment.

Shiite mosques and funerals have become a frequent target of Sunni-led insurgents. In February, suicide bombers attacked a number of them during the Shiite commemoration of Ashoura, killing nearly 100 people.

The violence was part of a surge of dramatic attacks that have caused heavy casualties in recent weeks, ending a relative lull since Jan. 30 elections.

In other developments:

In northern Iraq, a roadside bomb exploded near a U.S. Army patrol Friday, killing one soldier and wounding another, the military said. The early morning attack happened north of Tal Afar, a city about 90 miles east of the Syrian border, which has seen frequent clashes between U.S. and Iraqi forces.

Thursday, a roadside bomb exploded on the highway leading to Baghdad's airport, severely damaging three SUVs carrying civilians. Police Capt. Hamid Ali said two foreigners were killed and three were wounded. U.S. Embassy and military officials could not confirm the casualties.

In Ramadi, a roadside bomb wounded one soldier in a U.S. convoy. Another American soldier fired his machine gun at a suspected Iraqi ambush site, killing a female Iraqi civilian, U.S. officials said in a statement. Soldiers found an electronic device near the woman that may have been used to trigger the explosion, the statement said.

Hours later, gunfire erupted in Baghdad, and an Associated Press photographer saw the body of a young boy in a street near three smoldering cars. Sporadic gunfire continued for about two hours, said the photographer, Bilal Hussein. When it subsided, Iraqis pulled the charred body of an adult from one of the burned cars, Hussein said. It was not clear how the two were killed.

In Washington, the Senate on Thursday overwhelmingly approved $81 billion for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in a spending bill that would push the total cost of combat and reconstruction past $300 billion. The Pentagon says it needs the money by the first week of May, so Senate and House negotiators are expected to act quickly to send the president a final bill.

On Thursday, insurgents brought down a Russian-made helicopter carrying 11 civilians with missile fire north of the capital and said they captured and shot to death the lone crew member who survived.

The chartered flight was believed to be the first civilian aircraft shot down in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion two years ago. The dead included six American bodyguards for U.S. diplomats, three Bulgarian crew and two security guards from Fiji, officials said.

The helicopter went down about 12 miles north of Baghdad. Associated Press Television News footage showed burning wreckage from the craft and personal belongings scattered across a wide area.

U.S. officials could not confirm the cause of the crash. However, the Bulgarian Defense Ministry said the helicopter was struck by missile fire.

Bulgarian Defense Minister Nikolai Svinarov said Friday the crash was a "terrorist attack," but it will not affect Bulgaria's military involvement in Iraq.

"Bulgaria should not waver under terrorist pressure," said Svinarov, whose country has a 460-member contingent in Iraq.

A group calling itself the Islamic Army in Iraq posted a video on the Internet Thursday purporting to show the shooting of a survivor.

The authenticity of the footage, posted on a Web forum often used by militant groups, could not be confirmed. A U.S. Embassy official in Baghdad said he had no knowledge that anyone on board survived the crash and was killed later.

In the footage, which shows burning wreckage and two charred bodies, militants come across an injured man wearing a blue flightsuit lying in tall grass. His nationality was not immediately known.

"It's broken," he says in accented English, apparently referring to his leg, as militants — unseen except in brief glances tell him to stand up. "Weapons? Weapons?" the gunmen ask him in Arabic and English as he stands uneasily.

The gunmen tell him, "Go!", and the survivor starts to hobble away, holding his hands up toward them. The gunmen then open fire, shouting "Allahu akbar!" or "God is great!" with the bullets hitting his body. They fire more shots into his body on the ground.

The six Americans were employed by Blackwater Security Consulting, a subsidiary of North Carolina-based security contractor Blackwater USA, which had four employees slain and mutilated by insurgents in Fallujah a year ago — deaths that touched off a Marine assault on insurgents in the city.

The Islamic Army statement said it killed the survivor "in revenge for the Muslims who have been killed in cold blood in the mosques of tireless Fallujah before the eyes of the world and on television screens, without anyone condemning them." It was apparently referring to the Nov. 13 shooting by an American soldier of a wounded Iraqi in a Fallujah mosque during a U.S. offensive in the city.

Blackwater said another one of its guards was killed and four were injured Thursday when an explosive device was detonated next to an armored personnel carrier near Ramadi. No further details were released.