Bombing Near Iraq Shrine Leaves 35 Dead

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BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) – A suicide bomber blew himself up Thursday among pilgrims outside Iraq’s holiest Shiite shrine, killing 35 people and wounding 122. A radical Sunni group claimed it carried out the attack in the southern city of Najaf, warning Shiites they are not safe even “deep in your regions.”

At least 37 other people were killed or found dead Thursday elsewhere in Iraq, police said. They included five civilians who died when a mortar shell struck a cafe in a Shiite Muslim area of north Baghdad.

The suicide bomber struck as he was being patted down by a security guard in front of the Imam Ali mosque in Najaf, which contains the tomb of Prophet Muhammad’s son-in-law, Ali, and is one of the world’s most sacred shrines for Shiites.

An Iraqi army statement put the casualty toll at 35 dead and 122 injured.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Mailiki, a Shiite, denounced the bombing as a “barbaric massacre” conducted by Sunni extremists and Saddam Hussein loyalists “seeking to inflame sectarian” passions.

A Sunni extremist group _ Jamaat Jund al-Sahaba or Soldiers of the Prophet’s Companions _ claimed responsibility for the blast, warning Shiites in an Internet posting that “our swords are capable of reaching deep in your regions.”

“So stop killing unarmed Sunnis and stop supporting the crusaders,” or the Americans, the statement said. “Otherwise, wait for such operations that will shake your regions like an earthquake.”

The blast shattered souvenir stalls across from the shrine, littering the narrow streets with broken perfume bottles, sandals, prayer beads and pools of blood. Volunteers picked up the human remains.

“Before I reached the checkpoint, only a few feet from the shrine, I heard a huge explosion,” said 51-year-old Shakir Obeid Hassan. “Something hit me on the head and I fell. I couldn’t hear for a while but I saw bodies and human flesh everywhere.”

An Iranian woman was among the dead and at least nine Iranians, including two women, were wounded, Iranian state television reported.

It was the deadliest attack since July 18, when 53 people were killed by a suicide bombing in Najaf’s twin city of Kufa, about 100 miles south of Baghdad.

Thursday’s bombing represented a brazen assault on the Shiite community, which reveres Najaf as the world center of Shiite theology. The late Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini lived for years in exile in Najaf; Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, the head of Lebanon’s Hezbollah guerrillas, studied there.

Najaf was the scene of heavy fighting in 2004 between U.S. forces and the Mahdi Army of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, until the Shiite clerical hierarchy convinced al-Sadr to give up. Since then, the city had been tightly controlled by police and Shiite guards, including former militiamen.

In the days before the attack, a letter purportedly from Saddam’s Baath Party had been circulating in Najaf, blaming Shiite politicians for Iraq’s security crisis. The letter accused Shiite militias of slaughtering Iraqis at a time when the country lacks basic services, including gas, electricity and water.

“They’ve been ruling you from their basements and their air-conditioned rooms, not knowing the magnitude of the crises that have been gripping the poor citizen,” the statement said. “We reiterate that we are the best, the strongest and the most competent, and that we are enshrouded in honor.”

Iraq’s biggest Shiite party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, said the bombing was carried out by “criminals who target the descendants of the prophet with their dirty sectarian war.”

It urged the government to “severely punish those who’ve been involved in terrorism operations or support terror.”

The government agency that cares for Shiite mosques urged Iraqis not to be incited by “this terrorist and criminal attack” and remained united against sectarian hatred.

Violence between Sunni and Shiite extremists has been on the rise since a bombing wrecked a Shiite shrine in Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, on Feb. 22. The sectarian bloodletting has prompted the U.S. military to rush about 12,000 American and Iraqi soldiers to Baghdad to confront Sunni and Shiite gunmen.

The sectarian crisis also has dashed U.S. hopes for an early drawdown in the 127,000-member U.S. military force and raised doubts about the ability of al-Maliki’s government to bring together the country’s religious, ethnic and cultural communities.

In other developments Thursday:

_ Four policemen were killed _ including a colonel _ and four were wounded in clashes south Baghdad, police said.

_ Two civilians were killed and six wounded when a bomb exploded in a restaurant in south Baghdad, police said.

_ National Security Adviser Mouwaffak al-Rubaie said police arrested 20 al-Qaida members and killed one in recent few days.


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