Mosque bomb death toll rises to 85

The attack in Najaf during Friday prayers that came as the country’s Shiites were engaged in a generational power struggle, is certain to complicate American efforts to pacify an increasingly violent Iraq.

The terrorist strike against innocent civilians as they emerged from a sacred place on the traditional Muslim day of prayer and rest produced what may have been the biggest one-day death toll in the war since American forces fought their way into Baghdad on April 8 and 9.

The Arab satellite broadcasters Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya both reported 82 people dead and 229 wounded.

The Shiites immediately laid blame on Saddam Hussein loyalists – chiefly from the rival Sunni Muslim sect and oppressors of the majority Shiites for decades.

While the Shiites themselves are engaged in a struggle for control of the sect and its future direction, there was no evidence the bombing was the work of the younger Shiite faction. That group has its strongest support in Baghdad’s Sadr City slum and has been trying to wrest control from al-Hakim followers.

Ahmad Chalabi, leader of the Iraqi National Congress and a member of Iraq’s Governing Council, blamed the attack on those behind the August 19 suicide truck bombing at the United Nations headquarters in Iraq that killed more than 20 people and injured more than 100. He offered no evidence to support his claim.

The Governing Council declared a three-day period of mourning beginning Saturday.

Dr Ishan al-Khosai at Najaf Teaching Hospital said there were 80 dead at his building. At Najaf Hospital, Dr Faisal Ouda said there were five dead from the blast.

Both doctors said many of the wounded were in a critical condition. Medical facilities throughout Najaf were thronged with people looking for relatives and loved ones.

Al-Khosai said there had not been a shortage of blood for treating victims because so many Najaf residents had turned out to donate.

The car bomb outside the Imam Ali mosque was detonated as al-Hakim emerged from the shrine and was about to drive away. He had just delivered a sermon calling for Iraqi unity and help from Arab neighbours in rebuilding and pacifying the country, witnesses said.

Hours after the blast, pandemonium still gripped the city. People screamed in the streets in grief and anger. Some attacked reporters. Others searched through the rubble for more victims. A line of shops opposite the shrine was reduced to a tangled mass of metal and wood. Goods for sale before the explosion were strewn in shreds about the pavement. Bodies and body parts could be seen in the ruins.

A group of men and women pressed their hands and cheeks against the doors of the shrine, which had been closed after the blast.

“Even the Americans didn’t bomb us like this,” screamed one woman through her tears.

Some mosaic tiles were blown off the shrine and a three and a half-foot wide crater was dug out of the street at the front of the mosque.

“The people who did this are traitors and bastards. They are not real Iraqis,” said Nagih Salah, a 40-year-old truck driver who was on the opposite side of the shrine when the blast occurred.

No coalition troops were in the area of the mosque out of respect for the holy site, Pentagon spokesman Lt Col Jim Cassella said in Washington. US-led troops have been asked to stay away from the mosque by Shiite officials.

In Crawford, Texas, US president George Bush called the bombing a “vicious act of terrorism” and said US officials would help find who committed the attack and ”bring them to justice”.

“(Al-Hakim’s) murder today, along with the murder of many innocent men and women gathered for prayer, demonstrates the cruelty and desperation of the enemies of the Iraqi people,” Bush said.

Chalabi, one of the key Iraqi exiles to return after the war and a prominent member of the US-picked interim government, spoke to al-Jazeera of his growing concern about security.

“I don’t hold the American forces responsible for the al-Hakim assassination. But I hold the coalition forces responsible for security in Iraq. The Americans have taken responsibility for security in Iraq, and I appeal to them to keep the peace,” Chalabi told the television channel.

About 1000 al-Hakim followers demonstrated in front of the Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution headquarters in Sadr City in Baghdad. Some sat weeping on the ground others shouted for revenge.

Al-Hakim was the spiritual and top leader of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and had divided his time since the end of the war between Tehran and Najaf, the holiest Shiite Muslim city in Iraq. The organisation had been formed in Iran during the exile of many leading Shiites.

In the struggle for the future of Shiism, Sheik Muqtada al-Sadr and his young followers have sought tirelessly to replace more traditional factions, portraying themselves as the ones doing the most to redress decades of suppression by Sunni Muslims under the rule of Saddam Hussein.

Students of Shiism, however, say al-Sadr draws most of his support from the the historical following developed by his father, a leading Shiite academic murdered by Saddam.

The al-Hakim family, meanwhile, owed much to neighbouring Iran where many members sought refuge from Saddam death sentences after the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war in 1980.

The latest bombing in Najaf comes less than a week after a bomb exploded outside the house another of Iraqi’s leading Shiite clerics, killing three guards and injuring 10 others including family members. The cleric suffered only minor injuries.

The al-Hakims are one of the most influential families in the Shiite community in Iraq.

Iraqi newspapers reported two weeks ago that Mohammed Saeed al-Hakim had received threats against his life. He also is one of three top Shiite leaders threatened with death by a rival Shiite cleric shortly after Saddam Hussein was toppled on April 9.

A day after Saddam’s ousting, a mob in Najaf hacked to death a Shiite cleric who had returned from exile. Abdul Majid al-Khoei was killed when a meeting called to reconcile rival Shiite groups erupted into a melee at the Shrine of Ali, one of Shiite Islam’s holiest sites.

Shiites make up some 60% of Iraq’s 24 million population.