100 feared dead in mosque massacre

THE death toll from a massive car bomb at one of Islam’s holiest shrines in Iraq was heading to more than 100 people last night.

It was the worst such atrocity in Iraq since the US-led war toppled Saddam Hussein in April.

Among the dead was a top Shi’ite ayatollah who is believed to have been the principal target.

The killers waited until thousands of worshippers were pouring out after noon prayers at the Iman Ali Mosque in Najaf, 100 miles south of Baghdad, before detonating the device.

Bodies were ripped apart by the blast and strewn across a wide area.

Last night, Safaa al-Ameedi, the chief doctor at the city’s main hospital, reported at least 90 dead and 140 wounded with the toll rising by the minute.

He said medical facilities throughout Najaf were thronged with people looking for relatives and loved-ones.

Hours after the blast there was still pandemonium as people screamed in the streets in grief and anger, and searched through the rubble for more victims.

A group of men and women were pressing their hands and cheeks against the doors of the shrine.

“Even the Americans didn’t bomb us like this,” screamed one woman through her tears.

Among the dead was Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, who had just delivered a sermon calling for Iraqi unity and seeking Arab help to rebuild the country.

He was believed to have been the main target of the bombers thought to be a rival Shi’ite faction or Saddam Hussein loyalists. Saddam, a Sunni Muslim, had suppressed the Shi’ites, who make up 60% of Iraqis, for much of his reign.

No coalition troops were in the area of the mosque out of respect for the holy site, said Pentagon spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Jim Cassell.

Spanish forces, who are assuming control of the region from the US marines, were seen in small numbers on the outskirts of the city.

The leader of Iraqi National Congress and Governing Council Member Ahmad Chalabi, blamed the attack on the same group that carried out the August 19 suicide truck bombing at the UN headquarters in Baghdad that killed at least 23 people.

The Najaf atrocity came less than a week after a bomb exploded outside the house another of Iraqi’s leading Shi’ite clerics, killing three guards and injuring 10 others including family members.

Meanwhile, an American soldier was killed and four others were wounded in Iraq yesterday when their convoy came under attack on a main road near Baqouba, 40 miles north-east of Baghdad. Also yesterday, a car exploded near the main British military base in the Iraqi city of Basra but there were no casualties.