March 10, 2005

At least 47 people have been killed by a suicide bomber who blew himself up at a Shia funeral service in the restive northern Iraqi city of Mosul. Medical officials said at least 90 people were also wounded in the attack, which happened in a poor neighbourhood. The bomber struck as mourners crowded into a hall next to the mosque. Iraqi officials have accused Sunni Muslim insurgents of attacking Shia targets in order to spark a civil war in the religiously divided country. The attack was at the Shahidain mosque which is surrounded by cheap housing in Mosul's central Tameem neighbourhood. Witnesses described seeing a ball of fire and hearing a huge explosion inside the courtyard of the mosque, which is still under construction. "After the cloud of smoke and dust dispersed we saw the scattered bodies of the fallen and smelled gunpowder," Adnan al-Bayati, a 45-year-old witness, is quoted as saying. The force of the blast shattered car windows and left pools of blood on the ground. Mosul, an Arab-majority city in the mainly Kurdish northern region, has been the scene of fierce clashes between insurgents and US forces and Iraqi government forces since November. Tensions have risen between the three main groups in the area - Sunni Arabs, Shias and Kurds. The attack in Mosul comes at the end of two days of violence in which a several were killed and dozens of dead bodies found. [more]

Pictured above: Insurgents carrying rocket-propelled grenade launchers take up position in Ramadi, an insurgent stronghold 113 kilometers (70 miles) west of Baghdad in Iraq, Wednesday, March 9, 2005. Iraqi soldiers sealed off the roads leading to Ramadi on Wednesday and insurgents roamed the city streets, causing shops to close and the streets to empty of civilians fearing possible clashes.