14 Shi’ites killed by car bomb as they left mosque
In a sign of the insurgents’ confidence, a group beheaded an Iraqi soldier in broad daylight in the rebel town of Ramadi. They left the body, still dressed in army fatigues, in the street with the severed head placed on the torso and a note warning other Iraqi troops to quit.
The bomb, which exploded at a small green-domed mosque in western Baghdad as the faithful finished praying, wounded 40 people including children, doctors said. The emergency room of a nearby hospital was filled with bloodied bodies.
Meantime, militants threatening to kill eight Chinese hostages said in a new video tape they would treat them “mercifully” if China, which opposed the US-led war to overthrow Saddam Hussein, banned all Chinese nationals from entering Iraq. China responded by appealing for “friendship between the Chinese people and the Iraqi people” and pointed out it had already advised its nationals to leave Iraq.
The militants have stepped up violence ahead of Iraq’s first multi-party election in nearly half a century on January 30. They have also targeted the mosques of rival Muslims in what officials say is a bid to plunge Iraq into a sectarian civil war.
The Baghdad mosque bombing, timed to coincide with the Muslim feast of Eid al-Adha, is the latest in a string of attacks targeting leaders, mosques and parties representing Shi’ites, who make up 60% of Iraq’s population.
Shi’ites are expected to finish on top in the election to the 275-seat national assembly after decades of oppression during Saddam’s Sunni-dominant rule.
Several Sunni Arab parties say they will boycott the poll because it is not safe for supporters to vote in Sunni areas.
In the last month, a dozen people died in a car bomb outside the offices of a leading Shi’ite political party and two people considered close to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq’s foremost Shi’ite cleric, have also been killed.
Sistani has overseen the formation of a Shi’ite-led alliance to contest the poll and has ordered his followers to vote.
Leaders of both communities have urged Iraqis to oppose militants such as Jordan’s Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
Zarqawi, who is allied to al-Qaida and active in Iraq, told Washington in an audio tape posted on the internet on Thursday that the war would drag on for “months and years,” and he dismissed Sistani as an “imam of atheism.”
Iraq’s Justice Minister Malek Dohan al-Hasan said his own Shi’ite community should allow the Sunni minority a share in Iraq’s leadership after next Sunday’s vote.
In southern Iraq, an Italian soldier was killed when the helicopter he was travelling in was hit by ground fire near Nassiriya.
Many Iraqis are likely to regard the election as a distraction from the problems they face on a daily basis.
Most of Baghdad has been without water this week and the electricity supply is sporadic.
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