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Baghdad toll at 53 as sectarian attacks go on
(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-02-23 14:56
Fifty-three people were killed in Baghdad in the 24 hours since the bombing
of a major Shi'ite shrine sparked the worst sectarian violence the country has
seen since the fall of Saddam Hussein, police said on Thursday.
An Iraqi Shi'ite
woman during a protest outside the Kazemiya mosque in Baghdad, February
22, 2006. [Reuters] | Gunmen sprayed a Sunni
mosque in the city of Baquba, northeast of the capital, killing one person in
the latest of dozens of such incidents that have left religious and political
leaders scrambling to halt a descent into all-out civil war.
Three journalists working for Al-Arabiya television were found shot dead
after being attacked while filming in Samarra, where the bloodless but highly
symbolic bombing of the Golden Mosque at dawn on Wednesday provoked widespread
protest.
In the bloodiest apparent reprisal for the attack on one of Shi'ite Islam's
holiest site, men in police uniform seized 12 Sunni rebel suspects, including
two Egyptians, from a prison in the mainly Shi'ite city of Basra and killed 11
of them.
President Jalal Talabani summoned leaders of all sides to a summit at 10:30
a.m. (0730 GMT) after the bombing provoked outrage among majority Shi'ites that
surpassed the anger caused by thousands of killings by Sunni militants since
U.S. forces toppled Saddam's Sunni-dominated government three years ago.
One man just stood silently inside the gutted Abdel Rahman mosque in central
Baghdad. A veiled woman said she saw assailants throw grenades at the Sunni
mosque and then open fire and set it alight, one of several badly damaged
overnight.
BUSH CONCERN
US President George W. Bush, whose diplomats and military commanders are
pressing Shi'ite leaders to accept Sunnis in a national unity government after
they took part in an election in December, urged Iraqis not to rise to the bait
of what US and Iraqi officials called an al Qaeda attempt to fuel civil strife.
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