Iraqis arrest 19 with terror ties in mosque blast

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NAJAF, Iraq -- Police have arrested 19 men -- many of them foreigners and all with admitted links to al Qaeda -- in the car bombing of a mosque in the holy Shi'ite city of Najaf that killed 85, a senior Iraqi investigator said yesterday.

Two Iraqis and two Saudis grabbed shortly after Friday's attack on the Imam Ali shrine gave information leading to the arrest of the others, said the official, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

Those arrested include two Kuwaitis and six Palestinians with Jordanian passports. The remainder are Iraqis and Saudis, the official said, without giving a breakdown.

Initial information shows the foreigners entered Iraq from Kuwait, Syria and Jordan, the official said, adding that they belong to the rigid Wahhabi sect of Sunni Islam.

"They are all connected to al Qaeda," the official said.

Wahhabism is the strict, fundamentalist branch of Sunni Islam from which al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden draws spiritual direction. Based in Saudi Arabia, its followers show little tolerance for non-Wahhabi Sunnis and Shi'ites. Wahhabism was banned in Iraq by ousted dictator Saddam Hussein.

The Najaf bombing, the worst attack in Iraq since the U.S.-led campaign to topple Saddam began in April, killed 85 persons, including a top Shi'ite cleric, Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim. Hospital officials said higher tolls -- 107, according to one account -- were reduced after some deaths were found to have been reported twice.

Police pointed to similarities between the mosque bombing and two recent attacks.

The bomb at the Imam Ali shrine -- the burial place of the son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad -- was made from the same type of materials used in the Aug. 19 truck bombing at the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad, which killed 23 persons, and the Jordanian Embassy vehicle bombing Aug. 7, which killed 19, the Iraqi official said.