Suicide bombers disrupt holy day

BAGHDAD — Eight suicide bombers struck in quick succession yesterday in a wave of attacks that killed 55 persons as Iraqi Shi’ites marched and lashed themselves with chains in ritual mourning of the seventh-century death of their sect’s founder.

Ninety-one persons have been killed in violence in the past two days.

For the second year running, terrorist attacks on pilgrims shattered the commemoration of Ashura, the holiest day of the Shi’ite religious calendar. A year ago, 181 died in twin bombings in Baghdad and Karbala.

With majority Shi’ites poised to take control of the country for the first time in modern Iraqi history, the interim government and Shi’ite politicians vowed the bloodshed would not cause the nation to spiral into civil war.

The suicide bombings were attempts “to create a religious war within Iraq,” said Mowaffak al-Rubaie, the national-security adviser for the interim government. “Iraqis will not allow this to happen. Iraqis will stand united as Iraqis foremost, and Iraq will not fall into sectarian war.”

“The bombings on Shi’ite mosques and shrines on Ashura by terrorists that call themselves Muslims are in fact actions by terrorists only attempting to spill even more Muslim blood by encouraging sectarian violence,” he said.

Yesterday’s carnage was the deadliest of any day since last month’s elections for a new national assembly, in which the Shi’ite ticket, the United Iraqi Alliance, won 48 percent of the vote.

The alliance was expected to name its candidate for prime minister in the coming days.

As the violence ravaged the country, a five-member U.S. congressional delegation including Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, New York Democrat, met with Iraqi government officials in Baghdad’s heavily fortified green zone.

“The fact that you have these suicide bombers now, wreaking such hatred and violence while people pray, is to me, an indication of their failure,” Mrs. Clinton told reporters.

Bayan Jaber, a leading member of the Shi’ite Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), said the attacks had failed to create a divide between Shi’ites and the Sunni Arab minority.

Shi’ites account for about 60 percent of Iraq’s 26 million people. The Sunnis make up 20 percent of the population, but dominated politics under deposed dictator Saddam Hussein and previous governments after Iraq gained independence from Britain.

Mr. Jaber called the attackers a small faction of Sunnis “who are extremist Wahhabis, who want to spark a civil war in Iraq.” But, he added, “a sectarian war will never occur in Iraq because Iraq is not like Afghanistan or Pakistan. We have tribal, marital and historical relations with Sunnis, and nothing will affect it.”

The death toll rose rapidly yesterday as the terrorists mounted attacks throughout the country employing suicide bombers — responsible for most deaths — mortar fire and gunmen, said Capt. Sabah Yassin, a Defense Ministry official.

One of the deadliest attacks was the work of a suicide car bomber at an Iraqi army checkpoint in Latifiyah, 20 miles south of the capital, killing nine Iraqi soldiers.

At least seven other bombers staged attacks in Baghdad and the region. Explosions reverberated in the capital throughout the day and into the night.

One American soldier died and another was wounded in one of the bombings, the U.S. military said.

Insurgents appeared to have struck at will in some areas despite stepped-up security that was prompted by last year’s deadly Ashura blasts.

But in Karbala, the Shi’ite holy city 50 miles south of Baghdad and site of one of last year’s explosions, there were no incidents yesterday.

Hundreds of thousands of people had gathered there to mark the holy day, which commemorates the death of the Imam Hussein, a grandson of the prophet Muhammad.

Hussein was killed in a power struggle in the seventh century and is buried in a gold-domed shrine in Karbala. The incident led to the permanent split in Islam between the Sunni and Shi’ite sects.

Nearly all of yesterday’s attacks inside Baghdad took place in the northern Azamiya and Kazimiya districts.

The assaults began before noon, when a bomber walked into a tent outside a Sunni mosque in western Baghdad and blew himself up, killing at least three persons and injuring 10, police Capt. Hussain al-Ani said. About 50 people were inside the tent attending a funeral.

It was not clear why the attacker struck the tent full of Sunnis outside the Fatah Pasha mosque, but similar structures were in place outside Shi’ite mosques for the Ashura celebration. Most attacks by insurgents — who are thought to be predominantly Sunni Muslims — are aimed at Shi’ites.

Next, a suicide bomber killed two Iraqi national guardsmen also in the north, while another suicide attacker blew himself up on a public bus in Kazimiya, killing one child and six adults. Ten persons were injured.

Police officer Rashid Haroun said yet another suicide bomber blew himself up near the Nada mosque in Kazimiya and seven Shi’ites, including three members of the national guard, were killed. That blast also injured 55 persons, he said.

According to police Capt. Hazim Ibrahim, two more suicide bombers died in the Kadhimiya area, one who blew himself up in the Judges Institute — an academic institution — but killed no one else, and another who was apparently fatally shot by U.S. troops.

In other attacks, a suicide bomber blew up a car outside an Iraqi national guard base in Baqouba, killing three Iraqi guardsmen and wounding a fourth.

Six Iraqi guardsmen were killed in a mortar attack on the main highway between Baghdad and Hillah.

Also yesterday, authorities reported arresting two terrorist leaders, including a top aide to Iraqi al Qaeda leader Abu Musab Zarqawi.