IRAQ: Iraq's political and religious leaders were engaged in a desperate effort last night to stop the country from sliding into civil war after a huge bomb shattered the golden-domed Askari mosque in the city of Samarra, one of Shia Islam's most revered sites.
Last night gunmen in police uniforms seized 11 Sunni men suspected of being insurgents from a prison in Basra and later killed them, police said. It was reported that among those killed in the apparent reprisal attack for the bombing of the shrine were two Egyptians, the other nine were Iraqis. The attackers arrived in a convoy of 16 cars. All 11 prisoners were later found dead with gunshot wounds.
Appeals for unity and calm were made by the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's senior Shia cleric, and the president, Jalal Talabani, who warned that Iraq was in "grave danger" and urged Iraqis to work together to prevent a civil war.
The calls for restraint were echoed in Washington and London. President Bush pledged financial help in reconstructing the mosque. "Violence will only contribute to what the terrorists sought to achieve by this act," he said. British prime minister Tony Blair, who also promised to help with the rebuilding, said the attackers' aim was to foment violence between Shias and Sunnis, and urged both communities not to "fall into the trap".
Tariq al-Hashimi, a leading Sunni politician, said 29 Sunni mosques had been attacked nationwide, and at least one cleric killed. He urged religious leaders and politicians to calm the situation "before it spins out of control". Other leading Sunni figures condemned the blast.
The attack on the mosque in the mainly Sunni town of Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, occurred shortly after dawn, when up to 10 gunmen dressed as police commandos burst into the compound, tied up the guards and triggered a series of explosions that brought the golden dome crashing to the ground. All that remained were the walls of the mosque, flanked by two minarets. US and Iraqi forces sealed off the mosque and searched local houses. There was no claim of responsibility, but the five police officers responsible for protecting the mosque were taken into custody, and the Iraqi authorities said another 10 men "with links to al-Qaeda" had been arrested.
It was the third large-scale attack in as many days aimed at Iraqi Shias, who in the post-war chaos have been targeted by Sunni extremists with hundreds of car and suicide bombs. Though no one was reported killed, the impact was immediate and far-reaching.
Protests by several hundred shocked Shia faithful in Samarra were repeated and magnified in the Shia heartlands of Baghdad and cities throughout the south. In the capital, residents woke up to shouts of "Allah Akhbar" (God is great) booming out from loudspeakers at Shia mosques.
"The takfiris [ Sunni extremists] have destroyed our holy shrine in Samarra," imams told their neighbourhoods before reciting verses from the Koran. Shopkeepers shut their stores as thousands of mainly young Shias took to the streets, urging reprisal attacks against Sunni targets. "I am going to go and burn the Abu Hanifa mosque [ a revered Sunni place of worship in Baghdad]," said one youth who was carrying a picture of the militant cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. It is time to take revenge for the martyrs." Police said that at least 17 Sunni mosques in the capital had been fired on and one cleric killed by Shia militants wearing the black uniforms of Mr Sadr's al-Mahdi army.
In Basra, Sadr militants attacked the office of the mainstream Sunni Iraqi Islamic party.