Bombers target Shiites on eve of holiest day

Four explosions ripped through Baghdad today, killing at least 28 people and injuring dozens on the eve of Shiite Islam’s holiest festival.

It was the deadliest day since Iraq’s landmark elections last month.

Suicide bombers struck at two Shiite mosques as Friday prayers ended, another explosion occurred near a Shiite religious procession and a fourth attack, also carried out by a suicide bomber, blasted an Iraqi police and National Guard checkpoint in a Sunni neighbourhood.

The attacks recalled bombings on the Ashoura holiday a year ago that killed at least 181 during the religious festival.

In northern Iraq, meanwhile, three American soldiers were killed in separate attacks on Wednesday and Thursday, the US military said.

The bloodshed began when a bomber entered the vestibule of al-Khadimain mosque in the Iraqi capital’s Doura district as worshippers inside knelt in prayer before detonating his explosives, said a witness, Hussein Rahim Qassim.

Shortly afterward, a bomb exploded outside the al-Bayaa mosque in a predominantly Shiite neighbourhood in western Baghdad.

The first explosion killed 15 and the second killed 10, an official at Baghdad’s al-Yarmouk Hospital said . About 30 were wounded at both mosques.

Less than an hour later, an explosion near a procession of Shiites marking Ashoura north-west of the city centre killed two and injured five, according to Iraqi police.

The fourth attack was at the checkpoint in northern Baghdad neighbourhood of al-Adamiyah. An Associated Press reporter at the scene saw one dead police officer and two wounded civilians.

Shiites packed into mosques Friday to mark the eve of Ashoura, the 10th day of the Islamic holy month of Muharram and the holiest day of the year for them.

The bombings were a bloody reminder of last year’s Ashoura commemorations, when twin blasts ripped through crowds of worshippers at Shiite Muslim shrines in Baghdad and Karbala and killed at least 181 people.

Ashoura marks the death of Imam Hussein, the grandson of the prophet Muhammad, in a seventh century battle for leadership of the Islamic world.

The imam at the al-Khadimain mosque used the minaret’s loudspeakers to appeal for blood donations.

Quick action from a security guard at the al-Bayaa mosque may have prevented more bloodshed.

Amer Mayah said he opened fire on a man – apparently a second suicide attacker at the mosque – who was trying to get two grenades from his pocket, “and immediately he exploded.”

There were no immediate claims of responsibility, but Iraqis blamed radical Sunni Muslim insurgents, who have staged car bombs, shootings and kidnappings to try to destabilise Iraq’s reconstruction and provoke a sectarian civil war between Shiites and Sunnis.

“Those infidel Wahhabis, those Osama bin Laden followers, they did this because they hate Shiites,” said Sari Abdullah, a worshipper at the al-Khadimain mosque who was injured by shrapnel from the explosion. “They are afraid of us. They are not Muslims. They are infidels.”

Walid Al-Hilly, a leading figure of the Shiite-led Dawa Party, said the attacks were designed to provoke civil war.

“They kill unarmed men, women and children who want to glorify the ceremonies of Ashoura. These terrorist actions will not intimidate us nor make us change the way that we choose freedom from tyranny and oppression,” he said. “We chose the path of brotherhood, cooperation and unity between Sunnis, Shiites, Kurds, Shabak, Turkomen and Christians and all other sects.”

As of today, at least 1,473 members of the US military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003,.

One soldier was shot in Mosul in a small-arms attack on Thursday, the military said. West of Mosul, a soldier was killed and another was wounded when a roadside bomb exploded while they were on patrol in Tal Afar.

Another assault in Mosul on Wednesday took the life of third US soldier, who died in a car bomb attack while patrolling the volatile city. Three other soldiers were wounded in that blast.

The deadly explosions came as Iraq partially sealed its land borders as part of stepped up security on the eve of the holiday, hoping to avert a repeat of last year’s bloodshed.

In the southern city of Karbala, where Ashoura celebrations will be centred, police found the bodies of two policemen, both the sons of the Najaf police chief.

Their father, Ghalib al-Jazaeni, said they had been kidnapped overnight as they drove from Najaf to Karbala. Their hands were bound and they had been shot many times in the head.