Iraqi authorities struggled to contain a convulsion of sectarian violence on Thursday in which more than 150 people died in massacres, armed clashes, suicide bombs and reprisal attacks on Sunni mosques.
A day after the destruction of the gold-domed mosque in Samarra, one of the holiest Shia shrines, Sunni religious authorities said 128 Sunni mosques had been attacked and three clerics killed.
The fallout from the attack also hit home on the political front as Sunni leaders suspended participation in talks to form the new government and senior Sunni religious figures made unprecedented criticisms of their Shia counterparts for ”encouraging protests”.
The government also ordered a daytime curfew in Baghdad and three neighbouring provinces on Friday in response to the violence.
Shias, including members of Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mehdi army, took to the streets on Thursday vowing revenge for the attack on the shrine.
In the deadliest single incident, 47 people were dragged from their cars in the province of Diyala, north-east of Baghdad, and shot dead. Their bodies were dumped in a ditch. Officials said the gunmen, suspected of being Sunni insurgents, had planned to kill people returning from a demonstration against the bombing of the mosque. In Baquba, also north-east of Baghdad, at least 16 people were killed in a suicide bomb attack at a market.
Three Iraqi journalists were shot on the outskirts of Samarra after reporting on the bombing. Atwar Bahjat, a respected correspondent for al-Arabiya satellite channel, was killed with two colleagues from a local media company.
Al-Arabiya said Bahjat, who was born in Samarra to a Sunni father and a Shia mother, had been conducting interviews when two gunmen approached in a pickup truck. They shot in the air and shouted: ”We want the correspondent.” The gunmen then shot the three and fled, the station reported.
President Jalal Talabani’s office said the killing was ”a criminal and cowardly act” and praised Bahjat and her colleagues as professionals who ”never stopped defending the truth”. In Basra, police said Mehdi fighters had broken into a prison, removed 12 Sunni prisoners and shot them dead. Mahdi fighters also fought gun battles with Sunni insurgents in the town of Mahmudiya. In Shia strongholds in Baghdad, al-Sadr’s gunmen roamed the streets. The radical Shia cleric, who cut short a visit to Lebanon, said: ”If the authorities can’t protect us then we will defend our holy places with our blood.”
There were also indications that Sunni insurgents were fighting back. Four US soldiers were killed on patrol near Hawija, 240km north of Baghdad, and three others died when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb near Balad, 80km north of Baghdad, according to the US military.
Talabani, gathered political leaders for a crisis meeting at his home in Baghdad. Some Sunnis boycotted in protest at what they said was the inadequate protection given to Sunni targets in the past two days. The leaders of the Iraqi Accordance Front, the largest Sunni bloc, announced that they were suspending their participation until Shia leaders apologised for anti-Sunni violence.
Sunnis accuse Shia parties of running death squads from the interior ministry, and demand that security be transferred into more neutral hands. This week both British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and the United States ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, backed those calls. But a senior western diplomat in Baghdad said on Thursday night: ”After [the] attack on the shrine, it is difficult to imagine that the Shia will relinquish control of anything.”
No group has yet claimed responsibility for Wednesday’s dawn attack on the mosque, which houses the graves of two ninth-century imams, but suspicion has fallen on Sunni militants such as al-Qaeda in Iraq, led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
The Mujahideen Council, a militant organisation that includes Zarqawi’s groups, blamed the Iraqi government and Iran yesterday, and promised revenge for attacks on Sunnis.
International condemnation continued, with US President George Bush calling the bombing ”an evil act” intended to create strife. ”I am pleased with the voices of reason that have spoken out,” he said. ”And we will continue to work with those voices of reason to enable Iraq to continue on the path of a democracy.”
Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said the bombing was the work of Zionists and the CIA. – Guardian Unlimited Â