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US troops killed the al-Qaida mastermind of the latest bombing at a prized Shi'ite shrine, and at least 13 people died when mortars rained down on their Baghdad neighborhood, official said Sunday. Haitham Sabah Shaker Mohammed al-Badri was the al-Qaida in Iraq emir of Salahuddin province, and the figure responsible for the June 13 bombing of the Askariya mosque's twin minarets, the US military said in a statement. He died in a US operation east of Samarra on Thursday, though his death was announced three days later. "Al-Badri was positively identified by close associates and family members," the statement said....

BAGHDAD, June 13 (Reuters) - An explosion struck a revered Shi'ite Muslim shrine in the Iraqi city of Samarra on Wednesday that was badly damaged in February 2006, senior Shi'ite officials and a witness said. The witness said two minarets at the Golden Mosque were damaged in the blast. Last year's attack on the mosque triggered a wave of sectarian violence in Iraq that has killed tens of thousands of people.

There is still no gold dome on the Mosque of the Golden Dome. It has been a year, by the Muslim calendar, since an attack on one of the Shiites most sacred shrines here shattered this ancient mosque, ripping a hole to the heavens in its once glorious dome. Now, it is a hulking shell of its former self, gnarled and twisted metal snaking around the crumbling concrete structure. The blue and gold tiles that adorned the facade of the Al Askariya Shrine, covered with graceful Arabic script from the Koran, are in tatters, the broken pieces still on the...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Iraq's national security adviser said Sunday that violence from the past week is not a precursor to civil war between the country's religious factions. Instead, Mowaffak al-Rubaie blamed Jordanian-born terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's al Qaeda in Iraq group for the event that instigated four days of sectarian violence -- the Wednesday bombing of Al-Askariya Mosque, also known as the Golden Mosque, a revered Shiite shrine in Samarra. "The blueprints of that unfortunate event, the blueprints of al Qaeda in Iraq is there," al-Rubaie told CNN's "Late Edition With Wolf Blitzer." "It is the same design, the...

In the wake of violence that has killed nearly 130 people since the bombing of one of Shiite Islam's holiest shrines a daytime curfew has been enacted by the Iraqi government. The fledgling government is facing its first major crisis and the world is watching to see how the situation will develop. The bombing of the Mosque of the Golden Dome in Samarra was a devastating blow to a country deeply divided across sectarian lines: Sunni and Shiite. The destruction of this mosque has an enormous impact on the Shiite community. While I am no expert on Islam, it is...