SAMIR MIZBAN / Associated Press
A woman cried after a mortar round exploded in Baghdad yesterday
as a religious procession for the Shiite holy day of Ashoura passed.
Three people were killed.
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BAGHDAD, Iraq – A string of attacks mostly targeting Iraqi Shiites on the eve of one of their holiest days killed at least 33 people yesterday, a day after a coalition representing the Shiite majority was confirmed as the winner of Iraq's landmark election.
Stepping up their campaign to sow sectarian discord in the wake of the poll, insurgents struck three mosques, a religious procession and a base for Iraq's National Guard on one of the worst days of bloodshed in and around Baghdad since the election nearly three weeks ago.
The attacks seemed designed to spread fear among Iraq's Shiites as they prepare to commemorate the holy day of Ashoura today, stirring memories of the bloody attacks during last year's celebrations in which more than 180 people died.
In the first of yesterday's attacks, a suicide bomber wearing an explosives belt mingled among worshippers and then detonated the device during prayers at the Khadimain mosque in the southwestern Baghdad suburb of Dora. Fifteen people were killed and dozens were wounded, hospital officials said.
About 45 minutes later, two suicide bombers attempted to enter a mosque in the neighborhood of al-Bayaa in western Baghdad as prayers were under way. They were noticed by Iraqi guards, who opened fire.
One bomber was shot and his device detonated on the spot. The second fled and exploded his device about 100 yards away, the U.S. military said.
At least three people were killed in that attack, officials said.
Shortly after, a mortar round exploded near a coffee shop in the Shula neighborhood as a religious procession passed nearby, killing three people, police said.
Yesterday evening, a car bomb killed seven people when it exploded outside a Shiite mosque in the town of Iskandariyah, south of Baghdad, The Associated Press reported.
In Kirkuk, one person died in an attack on a Turkmen mosque, news agencies reported.
Attacks aimed at Iraqi and U.S. security forces also exacted a heavy toll yesterday.
Today, a car driven by a suicide bomber exploded outside an Iraqi National Guard base in Baquba, 35 miles north of Baghdad, killing one guardsman and wounding another, police said.
Earlier in Baquba, an Iraqi army officer was shot to death, and three others, including a 2-year-old, were wounded.
Two U.S. soldiers were killed by bombs – one near Diwaniyah, south of Baghdad, the other 25 miles north of the capital, the military said. The military also announced the deaths of three U.S. soldiers in separate attacks Thursday in and near the northern city of Mosul.
Also in Mosul, three mortar rounds fell on a bazaar near City Hall yesterday, killing a teenage boy and wounding three people, according to Zaid Azzam, a doctor at Republican Hospital.
At least three members of Iraq's security forces also died in an attack on their checkpoint in western Baghdad, officials said.
Violence had been anticipated during the Shiite festival, and police and national guard soldiers were out in force on the streets of Baghdad, guarding religious sites and manning checkpoints.
The city's Shiites also were out in force, thronging mosques and marching in the streets, flailing their backs and foreheads in a ritual expression of remorse for the failure of Shiites to go to the aid of their slain leader, Imam Hussein, at the battle of Karbala in 680.
Tight security measures are in place in Karbala, which typically draws hundreds of thousands of pilgrims to the site of the battle.
The slaying of Hussein in the 7th century lost him the chance to assume the caliphate of the Muslim world and precipitated the schism between the Shiite and Sunni branches of Islam.
The differences that have since divided the two communities have grown in the 22 months since the Sunni-dominated regime of Saddam Hussein was toppled, and the Shiite victory in the recent election seems likely to further deepen the sectarian divide.
At Friday prayers in Najaf, a senior Shiite cleric warned that insurgents were trying to spark a civil war and accused Sunni members of Iraq's security forces of helping the Sunni-dominated insurgency.
"The security organizations must get rid of these spoilers," said Sadreddin al-Qubanchi, a cleric affiliated with the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, one of the leading parties in the victorious Shiite coalition.
"There is a process under way of committing terrorism in the name of fighting terrorism."
The United Iraqi Alliance, a coalition of mostly religious Shiite parties, gained 140 seats in the 275-member National Assembly that will write Iraq's new constitution and pick the next government.
Though Shiite leaders have vowed to include disenfranchised Sunnis in the process, so far they have been unable to agree even on their own candidates for top government positions, and there has been little progress toward identifying posts for Sunnis not represented in the assembly.
Most of Iraq's Sunnis stayed away from the polls.
"Everybody meets with them, and everybody talks about how they have to have a Sunni outreach strategy, but I haven't seen too many concrete proposals," said a U.S. official in Baghdad, speaking on condition of anonymity.
American officials have praised the restraint of Shiites, who have largely refrained from retaliating against the building tempo of attacks against them.
Attacks against Shiite mosques during Friday prayers have become routine in recent months, though yesterday's onslaught represented a marked increase in the number of daily attacks.
The Washington Post contributed to this report.
