Bomb destroys Shia mosque in Iraq: witnesses

ABC News Online ^ | April 4, 2004 | Reuters

[yonif]

A bomb has exploded outside a small Shia mosque in the town of Baquba, north of Baghdad, early on Sunday local time, destroying most of the building and wounding one person, witnesses said.

A Reuters television cameraman at the scene said the al-Rasool al-Adham ("The Great Prophet") mosque had collapsed from the force of the explosion, which went off after morning prayers, when the building was mostly empty.

It is not the first time a mosque has been attacked in the town.

In January, five people were killed and more than 30 wounded when a bomb exploded outside another Shia mosque in the centre of Baquba as Friday prayers were ending.

The town, which lies about 65 kilometres north of Baghdad, is mixed Sunni and Shiite Muslim and has seen regular unrest over the past year, with insurgents attacking US forces and Iraqi police using roadside bombs or suicide attacks.

Shiites are the minority among Muslims worldwide but the majority in Iraq, with about 60 per cent of the population.

They were oppressed for decades under former president Saddam Hussein, a Sunni.

US officials are increasingly concerned about attempts to foment sectarian conflict, with both Sunni and Shia mosques being attacked and clerics killed in recent months.

[Kewlhand`tek]

awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww...........too fugnuttin bad :p

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[atomic conspiracy]

And the Al Reuters guy was right on the scene, in an obscure little town that couldn't begin to qualify as a regular beat.

[clee1]

How conveeeeeeeeeient!

[Dave Elias]

Doesn't it worry you that some two-bit hack has access to better intelligence than us?

[johnb838]

Yeah, what is up with that? I woke upi at 4:00 a.m. this morning and couldn't go back to sleep. Had to get on the computer. Something big is going down.

[monocle]

I guess it is okay for muslims to bomb mosques, but when a mosque is accidentially bombed or terorists are holed in the mosque by Westerns it becomes an international crime.

[atomic conspiracy]

Our intelligence would be as good as the hack's if the terrs were doing this for our benefit.

[Allegra]

Busy all over today...

[rageaholic]

I can see why these people earned themselves a dictatorship like Saddam's. Give these Untermensch an ounce of freedom and they're at each other's throats over some centuries old cultist grudge.

[LoudRepublicangirl]

Arabs have no concept of democracy. It's like cryptonite to them.

[rageaholic]

This is true. P.C. doctrine states that American muslims are "peace loving citizens just like everybody else."

What we're seeing in Iraq is the fact that islam and Democracy are antithetical. Islam is an enemy doctrine.

[hershey]

It's Bush's fault, of course. Kerry, with the lovely Teraysa at his side, will be out and about, foaming at the mouth about this and Fallujah now that he's had his elective surgery due to that 'bump' on the bus (surely the 'son of a bitch' driver has been fired by now!--refer to skiing and snowboarding incident with the Secret Service knocking our brave Vietnam vet down).

[dennisw]

Bomb-a-don, the Muslim holy days. The barracks religion. The religion of the bomb. Assassination by bombs same as Muhammad assassinated a poetess who mocked him

[OXENinFLA]

A Reuters television cameraman at the scene said the al-Rasool al-Adham ("The Great Prophet") mosque had collapsed from the force of the explosion, which went off after morning prayers, when the building was mostly empty.

Seems like this would be getting more play in the news.

[StriperSniper]

Seems like this would be getting more play in the news.

Yeah, this is the first I'm hearing, but I was watching the ESPN fishing shows early this morning. ;-)

[Bismarck]

...and clerics killed in recent months If they just killed all the radical clerics, then the Allies do not even need to bother about solving this problem! Most violence is being incited in mosques by hard-core islamic zealots anyway, so deactivating these spiritual leaders should be part of the nation-building and peace-keeping strategy.

[demkicker]

***BINGO*** Our special forces need to become hit squads for all of the clerics fueling anti-American hate speech. It's damn time our gloves come off. I'm sick of our guys getting slaughtered everyday by these heathens. The only thing they need to fear is the US military taking every stinking one of them out.

[CommandoFrank]

mosques being attacked and clerics killed

And the problem?