IRAQ: A car bomb outside a mosque in Baghdad killed nine people yesterday as poll results confirmed the new political dominance of Iraq's long-oppressed Shias.
Interior ministry sources and police said initially that the mosque in the violent Doura district of Baghdad was Shia. They later said the bomb exploded outside a Sunni mosque nearby.
There have been numerous killings of Sunni clerics, but bombings targeting Sunni mosques are rare, especially in Doura, a stronghold of insurgents from the sect.
"A huge explosion took place and I saw the bodies of old men and youths scattered about. Criminals are trying to use sectarianism among Sunnis and Shias. God and his Prophet won't accept that," said Taha Hussein, who witnessed the blast.
Some leaders of the Sunni minority dominant under Saddam Hussein have accused an alliance of Shia parties of cheating their way to victory in the December 15th poll, encouraging a Sunni insurgency to oust the Kurdish- and Shia-led government.
The insurgent group holding journalist Jill Carroll released a new video in which she pleaded with the authorities to meet her kidnappers' demand for the release of all women held by US forces and the interior ministry.
Certified final results from the December 15th election confirmed that the ruling United Iraqi Alliance, dominated by Islamist Shia, won a near-majority in parliament, securing 128 of the 275 seats.
The results also confirmed that a Kurdish alliance won 53 seats. Arab Sunni parties took a total of 58 after boycotting elections held in January 2005.
As electoral commission official Adel al-Lami read out the results at a media briefing in the heavily fortified Green Zone, 10km to the south the car bomb exploded, hurling worshippers to the ground.
Police said eight people had been killed and 28 wounded, but a source at nearby al-Yarmuk hospital put the death toll at nine and said 28 people had been wounded, many seriously.
The hospital's casualty ward was a scene of chaos as distraught family members got in the way of medical staff trying to bandage the blood-soaked wounded.
"God be with us," chanted one patient, while nearby a nurse treated the bloodied head of a child curled up on a hospital bed as his mother looked on.
Iraq has seen a rise in sectarian violence lately. Gunmen wearing Iraqi army uniforms kidnapped a Sunni mosque leader from his Baghdad home on Thursday night. Adel Khalil Dawoud, the imam of al-Nuami mosque, was seized by 16 gunmen.
A number of Sunni clerics have been killed in recent weeks. Dozens of bodies have also been found dumped around Baghdad, usually bound and shot dead.
All are believed to be the victims of spreading sectarian violence.