Dozens killed in mosque attack

Sunni-linked newspapers have said the Shiite mosque has been used for torture.
COMBINED DISPATCHES
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- In an audacious assault on a mosque linked to Iraq's largest Shiite political party, suicide bombers killed dozens of worshippers Friday and spurred accusations from a leading Shiite politician that Sunni leaders are provoking a "sectarian war."
Men and women were filing out of Baghdad's revered Buratha Mosque after Friday prayers when the suicide bombers, wearing women's cloaks, struck first at the gate near where female worshippers are searched before being allowed to enter the mosque's grounds. In the confusion after the initial blast, at least one other bomber ran into the mosque and exploded a suicide vest.
Friday's attack, the deadliest in Iraq this year, killed at least 79 people, wounded scores more and threatened to further inflame sectarian tensions in a nation that has been engulfed in violence. The coordinated attacks on the Baghdad mosque comes just one day after a car bomb exploded near the Imam Ali shrine in Najaf.
That bomb killed at least 10 and unsettled the holy city, which is secured, in part, by militias loyal to the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) and the anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
Rumors about mosque
Unfounded rumors published in newspapers tied to the Sunni political parties have disparaged the Buratha Mosque with charges that it has been used for torture and secret prisons run by militias and renegade members of the Interior Ministry.
After the blast, the mosque's imam, Jalal Eddin al-Sagheer, who is also a member of parliament and a top SCIRI official, accused Sunni politicians and clerics of running a "campaign of distortions and lies" against the mosque.
"Shiites are the ones who are targeted as part of this dirty sectarian war waged against them as the world watches silently," he told Al-Arabiya satellite television.
Since the Feb. 22 bombing of the Askariya shrine in Samarra, Shiite vs. Sunni violence has increased. The unsettled situation has been further complicated by Iraqi politicians' inability to form a government in the nearly four months since parliament was elected.
Blaming Americans
Iraqis blamed Americans for failing to prevent the attack.
"The Americans are preventing the police force from attacking the terrorists more forcefully. America is responsible," one man said. "The police should attack the terrorists directly. And the Sunnis should not be allowed to protect the terrorists."
U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad has pushed Iraqi leaders to quickly form a government, and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw made a joint trip to Iraq earlier this week to underscore the importance of settling on leaders.
After the bombing Friday, Khalilzad urged Iraqis to remain calm.
"I urge all Iraqis to exercise restraint in the wake of this tragedy, to come together to fight terror, to continue to resist the provocation to sectarian violence," the ambassador said in a statement.
After the attack, witnesses said the scene was horrific as the wounded lay bleeding and waiting for help and those who were fleeing had to step over the dead as they ran for cover.
Haji Haider, an aide to imam al-Sagheer, said he was leaving the mosque when the bombers struck. Haider said one of the suicide attackers struck less than 100 feet from him and he was spared injury only because there were many people between him and the bomber.
U.S. military deaths
Also Friday, the U.S. military reported the deaths of four more American service members, including one who died from wounds suffered in Baghdad. Two Marines and a soldier were killed Thursday.