Wednesday, February 22, 2006
SAMARRA, Iraq — A large explosion heavily damaged the golden dome of one of Iraq's most famous Shiite shrines Wednesday, spawning mass protests and triggering reprisal attacks against Sunni mosques. It was the third major attack against Shiite targets this week and threatened to stoke sectarian tensions.
Following the blast at the Shiite holy site, a Sunni cleric in Baghdad was killed after gunmen sprayed him with bullets as he entered a mosque, the Iraqi army said.
Shiite leaders called for calm, but militants attacked Sunni mosques and a gunfight broke out between Shiite militiamen and guards at the offices of a Sunni political party in Basra. About 500 soldiers were sent to Sunni neighborhoods in Baghdad to prevent clashes between Shiites and Sunnis, Army Capt. Jassim al-Wahash said.
A leading Sunni politician, Tariq al-Hashimi, said 29 Sunni mosques had been attacked nationwide. He urged clerics and politicians to calm the situation "before it spins out of control."
A government statement said "several suspects" had been detained and some of them "might have ... been involved in carrying out the crime."
No group claimed responsibility for the 6:55 a.m. attack on the Askariya shrine in Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, but suspicion fell on Sunni extremist groups such as Al Qaeda in Iraq led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The shrine contains the tombs of two revered Shiite imams, descendants of the Prophet Muhammad.
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The Interior Ministry said four men, one wearing a military uniform and three clad in black, entered the mosque and detonated two bombs, one of which collapsed the dome into a crumbly mess and damaged part of the shrine's northern wall.
Police said late Wednesday afternoon no casualties had been found.
U.S. and Iraqi forces in Samarra surrounded the shrine and searched nearby houses. Five police officers responsible for protecting the mosque were taken into custody, said Col. Bashar Abdullah, chief of police commandoes.
Demonstrators then gathered near the shrine, waving Iraqi flags, Shiite religious banners and copies of the Muslim holy book, the Koran.
"This criminal act aims at igniting civil strife," said Mahmoud al-Samarie, a 28-year-old builder. "We demand an investigation so that the criminals who did this be punished. If the government fails to do so, then we will take up arms and chase the people behind this attack."
Religious leaders at other mosques and shrines throughout the city denounced the attack in statements read over loudspeakers.
In Baghdad, National Security Adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie blamed religious zealots such as Al Qaeda, telling Al-Arabiya television 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 for seven days of mourning, his aides said.
The Sunni Endowment, a government organization that cares for Sunni mosques and shrines, condemned the blast and said it was sending a delegation to Samarra to investigate.
Shiite leaders in surrounding countries, including Iran's most influential cleric body, the Qom Shiite Seminary, also responded quickly.
"Ayatollahs in Qom have condemned the explosion and announced one day of public mourning," Hashem Hosseini, head of the seminary, told state-run television.
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. Smoke billowed from the building.
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 in the Shiite city of Kut, chanting anti-American and anti-Israeli slogans and burning those nations' flags. Crowds hurled stones at two Sunni mosques in Basra.
In the capital, the biggest attack against a Sunni mosque occurred in the Baladiyat area, 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.
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.
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."
The shrine attack followed a devastating car bomb late Tuesday in a Shiite corner of Baghdad, killing 22 people, according to police. The day before, 12 died in a suicide attack on a bus in the capital's heavily Shiite district of Kazimiyah.
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 shrine contains the tombs of the 10th and 11th imams, Ali al-Hadi, who died in 868 A.D., and his son Hassan al-Askari, who died in 874 A.D. and was the father of the hidden imam.
The golden dome was completed in 1905.
Samarra has been among the most difficult cities to pacify in the Sunni heartland. In 2004, the city fell under the control of extremists, and Al Qaeda flags could be seen flying over some buildings in the city. U.S. forces regained control but the city remains tense.
In April, an explosion blew away part of a wall on top of another Samarra landmark, the spiral minaret from a 9th-century mosque. Witnesses said two men climbed the 170-foot-tall minaret, then returned to the ground before the blast scattered rubble on the stairs that spiral up the outside of the structure.