Bomb kills 24 Shi’ite worshippers at morning prayer in Mosques

SUICIDE bombers targeted Shi’ite worshippers as they left morning prayers at two Baghdad mosques, killing 24 people and wounding more than 50 others, police said.

In a separate attack, gunmen fatally shot six Sunnis as they travelled in a minibus in the mainly Shi’ite town of Wajihiyah, a town 100km north of Baghdad.

The men were heading to Baquoba to visit relatives. They included two children, three women and a man, police said. Another woman and her small child were injured.

The bombings in Baghdad occurred as Shi’ite worshippers celebrated the holiday of Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the fasting month of Ramadan.

No group claimed responsibility, but attacks on Shi’ite civilians are widely associated with Sunni extremists like al-Qaida in Iraq hoping to reignite the sectarian conflict that pushed the nation to the brink of civil war two years ago.

In the deadliest attack, a suicide car bomber in a white Mercedes sedan detonated his explosives about 20 yards from a mosque in Zafaraniyah in south-eastern Baghdad. He set off the bomb when Iraqi soldiers tried to stop him from approaching the building, police said. That attack killed 14 people, including three Iraqi soldiers, and injured 28, police said.

In the other attack, a suicide bomber, who appeared to be in his late teens, detonated his explosive belt as worshippers were leaving the Rasoul mosque in the capital’s eastern New Baghdad district.

Ten people died and 24 were injured, police and officials at the al-Kindi and Ibn al-Nasif hospitals said.

The attacker approached the mosque and set off the explosion as a suspicious guard tried to keep him from entering. The guard was among those killed, police said.

The police officials all spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to the press.

The faithful at both mosques are followers of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the country’s top Shi’ite cleric. Sunnis and other Shi’ite groups celebrated the Eid al-Fitr holiday earlier in the week.

In a separate incident, a bomb in western Baghdad wounded four American soldiers. No other details were available but Baghdad police said the attacker was a suicide bomber who detonated his explosives on a US convoy.