Over 100 Killed After Mosque Attack
Iraq's turmoil has intensified in the wake of yesterday's bomb attack on a revered Shiite mosque in the city of Samarra.
A major Sunni Arab bloc Thursday suspended talks with Shiite and Kurdish parties on a new government after scores of Sunni mosques were attacked and dozens of bodies found in a wave of reprisal violence following the bombing of a revered Shiite shrine.
Iraqi forces are blanketing the country but, so far, they've been unable to halt the bloodshed, CBS News correspondent Kimberly Dozier reports.
An official northeast of Baghdad says gunmen stopping buses carrying factory workers northeast of Baghdad today have killed 47 people. The victims were traveling in three buses when they were stopped at a checkpoint in the Nahrawan area, about 12 miles south of Baqouba, said Dhari Thuban, a member of the Diyala Provincial Council. The buses were burned and their passengers killed, he said.
The motive for the killing was not immediately clear. Residents told police that the bullet-riddled bodies of victims ranging in age from 20 to 50 were found around midday behind a brick factory, the Interior Ministry said.
Violence continued elsewhere throughout Iraq on Thursday with an attack on a Sunni mosque in Baqouba, where eight Iraqi soldiers were killed in a bombing and nearly a dozen people were wounded. At least 47 other bodies were found scattered across Iraq, many of them shot execution-style and dumped in Shiite-dominated parts of Baghdad. Officials said at least 111 people had been killed across the country in violence believed triggered by the mosque attack.
Faced with the grim prospect of sectarian war, the government had extended the curfew until 4 p.m. the following day in Baghdad and three provinces. A statement said offenders would be detained. All leaves for Iraqi soldiers and police were canceled and personnel were ordered to report to their units.
In other recent developments:
The military identified Abu Asma, also known as Abu Anas and Akram Mahmud al-Mushhadani, as an explosives expert with close ties to important car bomb manufacturers in Baghdad. He died in a northern Baghdad raid conducted by coalition forces with the help of Iraqi police, a military statement said.
"Intelligence reports indicated Abu Asma was in possession of and expected to use suicide vests against the Iraqi people and security forces," the statement said. "He was directly responsible for many deaths and injuries of coalition and Iraqi security forces."
Radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr slammed the Iraqi government and U.S. forces for not protecting the Samarra shrine, also known as the Golden Mosque, and ordered his militia to defend Shiite holy sites across Iraq.
"If the government had real sovereignty, then nothing like this would have happened," al-Sadr said a statement. "Brothers in the Mahdi Army must protect all Shiite shrines and mosques, especially in Samarra."
President Bush said Thursday the bombing of a revered Shiite shrine in Iraq was "an evil act" intended to create strife.
"The act was an evil act," Mr. Bush said. "The destruction of a holy site is a political act intending to create strife. So I am pleased with the voices of reason that have spoken out. And we will continue to work with those voices of reason to enable Iraq to continue on the path of a democracy that unites people and doesn't divide them."
Mr. Bush said the United States was serious in its commitment to help rebuild the Golden Mosque. He at first appeared to blame al-Qaida for the bombing, and then emphasized that it is unknown who was responsible.
"You want to know how tough al-Qaida is, just look at we don't know exactly who did the bomibg of this incredibly important holy shrine," he said at a political fund raiser. "I firmly believe that whoever did this is not a religious person but an evil person."
"It carries all the hallmarks of muslim extremists with an ideology similar to al-Qaida," said Iraq's U.N. Ambassador Samir Sumaida'ie in a CBS News Exclusive Interview. "I believe this was a carefully planned and calculated strategic move on the part of those who wanted to derail the political process."
Bodies were found scattered across Iraq late Wednesday and early Thursday. They included a prominent Al-Arabiya TV female correspondent and two other Iraqi journalists, who had been covering Wednesday's explosion in Samarra. Their bullet-riddled bodies were found on the outskirts of the mostly Sunni Arab city 60 miles north of Baghdad.
The destruction of Samarra's gleaming dome of the 1,200-year-old Askariya shrine sent crowds of angry Shiites into the streets. Many included members of al-Sadr's Mahdi Army and other Shiite militias which the United States wants abolished.
Dozier says that for Shiite Muslims, who make up two-thirds of Iraq, the attack was a declaration of war on their way of life.
Wednesday's attack "could do more to drive the country toward civil war than all the suicide bombings against the Shiite community combined," Dozier reports.
The hard-line Sunni clerical Association of Muslim Scholars said 168 Sunni mosques were attacked, 10 imams killed and 15 abducted. The figures could not be independently confirmed.
In Thursday's violence, unidentified assailants fired machine guns and threw hand grenades at the Abu Ayoub al-Ansari mosque in Baqouba, about 35 miles northeast of Baghdad. At least one mosque employee was killed and two others injured, police said.
Also Thursday, thousands of protesters carrying Shiite flags and banners marched through parts of Baghdad and the Shiite holy city of Najaf. Shiite leaders called upon the people of Najaf to go to Samarra to defend the shrine.
Many religious and political leaders called for calm. "We are facing a major conspiracy that is targeting Iraq's unity," President Jalal Talabani said Wednesday. "We should all stand hand in hand to prevent the danger of a civil war."
Talabani, a Kurd, summoned political leaders to a meeting Thursday. But the biggest Sunni faction in the new parliament, the Iraqi Accordance Front, refused to attend, citing the attacks on Sunni mosques.
"It is illogical to negotiate with parties that are trying to damage the political process," said Tariq al-Hashimi, a leader of the Accordance Front.
Leaders attending the meeting agreed the best way to respond to Wednesday's attack is to form a unity government "whose top job should be getting the security situation under control and fighting terrorism," Talabani told reporters.
"If the fire of internal strife breaks out, God forbid, it will harm everyone," he said.
"I think the violence will continue," CBS News Middle East consultant Fouad Ajami says. "Alas, we have learned not to believe that deliverance is around the corner. We are at the end of year three of this war and every hope that the violence has subside, has been betrayed."