IRAQ: US forces were last night interrogating 15 men suspected of involvement in the devastating bombings in Kerbala as Iraq's political and religious leaders renewed calls for calm amid fears that the co-ordinated strikes on Shia holy sites could spark sectarian strife.
Striking a note of defiance, Iraq's governing council signalled its determination to press on, saying that the interim constitution agreed earlier this week would be signed tomorrow, after the three-day official mourning period.
"We refuse to let terrorism halt the political momentum we have achieved," a council spokesman said.
But Mr Paul Bremer, the US administrator in Iraq, conceded it was "increasingly apparent" terrorists were entering the country and pledged to increase border controls - a key demand of the country's leading Shia clerics.
"There are 8,000 border police on duty today and more are on the way," he said, adding that the US would spend $60 million on border security.
The multiple bomb attacks struck pilgrims at two of Shia Islam's holiest sites on the festival of Ashura.
There remained yesterday some confusion over the casualty figures. US officials said the death toll was 117, but Mr Mohammed Bahr al-Uloum, president of the governing council, said that 271 people were killed and 393 injured.
The discrepancy was an indication of the confusion and carnage created by the attacks.
At a briefing in Baghdad yesterday, Brig-Gen Mark Kimmit, said the attacks in Kerbala, where at least five explosive devices were detonated, involved one suicide bomber and timed explosive devices that may have been brought inside the security ring around two shrines on trolleys usually used for goods or for ferrying elderly pilgrims.
The suspects being questioned last night, reportedly five Iranians and 10 Iraqis, were pointed out after the bombing by witnesses and arrested, Gen Kimmit said.
Foreign fighters have been increasingly blamed for insurgent attacks since the capture of Saddam Hussein in December, but the scale and sophistication of Tuesday's attacks have caused alarm among US and Iraqi security officials.
US officials and Iraqi leaders have named an al-Qaeda-linked Jordanian militant, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, as a "prime suspect" for the attacks.
He is the alleged author of a recently intercepted letter propounding a strategy of igniting civil war between Iraq's Shia and Sunni communities to derail US plans to hand over power to the Iraqis on June 30th.
An Iraqi interior ministry official said yesterday: "We believe that outsiders are not wholly to blame. Iraqis must be giving the attackers food and refuge and intelligence . . . It seems like there is some cooperation between the suicide bombers and the former intelligence network of Saddam."