Iraqi authorities struggled to contain a convulsion of sectarian violence yesterday in which more than 150 people died in massacres, armed clashes, suicide bombs and reprisal attacks on Sunni mosques, writes Michael Howard in Irbil.
A day after the destruction of the gold-domed mosque in Samarra, one of the holiest Shia shrines, Sunni religious authorities said 128 Sunni mosques had been attacked and three clerics killed.
The fallout from the attack also hit home on the political front as Sunni leaders suspended participation in talks to form the new government and senior Sunni religious figures made unprecedented criticisms of their Shia counterparts for "encouraging protests".
Shias, including many from Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi army, took to the streets vowing revenge for the attack on the shrine, suspected to have been carried out by al-Qaeda.
In the deadliest single incident, 47 people were dragged from their cars in the province of Diyala, northeast of Baghdad, and shot dead. Their bodies were dumped in a ditch. Officials said the gunmen, suspected of being Sunni insurgents, had planned to kill people returning from a demonstration against the bombing of the Golden Mosque.
In Baquba, also northeast of Baghdad, at least 16 people were killed in a suicide bomb attack at a crowded market.
Three Iraqi journalists were shot on the outskirts of Samarra after reporting on the bombing. Atwar Bahjat, a respected correspondent for al-Arabiya satellite channel, was killed with two colleagues from a local media company.
In Basra, police said Mahdi militiamen had broken into a prison, removed 12 Sunni prisoners and shot them dead. Mahdi army fighters also fought running gun battles with Sunni insurgents in the town of Mahmudiya.
In Shia strongholds in Baghdad, Mr al-Sadr's gunmen roamed the streets. The radical Shia cleric, who cut short a visit to Lebanon, said: "If the authorities can't protect us, then we will defend our holy places with our blood."
There were also indications that Sunni insurgents were fighting back. Four American soldiers were killed on patrol near Hawija, 150 miles north of Baghdad, and three others died when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb near Balad, 50 miles north of Baghdad, according to the US military.
All leave was cancelled for Iraq's security forces and curfews were extended until 4pm in Baghdad, Basra and the religiously mixed provinces of Salaheddin, Diyala and Babil, as the country began three days of official mourning.
The Iraqi president Jalal Talabani gathered political leaders for a crisis meeting in Baghdad. Some Sunnis boycotted it over what they said was the inadequate protection given to Sunni targets in the past two days. Afterwards, Mr Talabani stressed the urgent need to form a government of national unity.
He told reporters: "If the fire of internal strife breaks out, God forbid, it will harm everyone."
But hopes of a breakthrough were dashed when leaders of the Iraqi Accordance Front, the largest Sunni bloc, announced that they were suspending their participation until Shia leaders apologised for anti-Sunni violence.
Sunnis accuse Shia parties of running death squads from inside the interior ministry, and demand that security be transferred into more neutral hands. This week, both the British foreign secretary Jack Straw and US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad backed those calls. But, as a senior western diplomat in Baghdad said last night: "After [ the] attack on the shrines, it is difficult to imagine that the Shia will relinquish control of anything."
No group has yet claimed responsibility for Wednesday's dawn attack on the mosque, which houses two revered ninth century imams, but suspicion has fallen on Sunni militants such as al-Qaeda in Iraq, led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
But the Mujahideen Council, a militant organisation that includes Zarqawi's groups, blamed Baghdad's government and Iran yesterday, and promised revenge for attacks on Sunnis.
International condemnation continued with George Bush calling the bombing "an evil act" intended to create strife. "We will continue to work . . . to enable Iraq to continue on the path of a democracy," he said.
Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the bombing had been the work of Zionists and the CIA.