Six killed in bike bomb attack on mosque

A BICYCLE bomb killed six people as they prayed at a crowded Shi’ite mosque in central Iraq yesterday, underscoring the threat of religious conflict in a country already racked by an anti-coalition insurgency.

In Baghdad, guerrillas fired rockets at dawn into a hotel used by Westerners and hundreds of US troops stormed houses and shops in Tikrit overnight in the hope of capturing those behind a wave of such attacks.

In Baquba, 40 miles north of Baghdad, unknown attackers strapped a gas cylinder packed with explosives to a bicycle and left it outside a small Shi'ite mosque close to people praying on the pavement because of lack of space inside.