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Blast Kills, Injures Scores in Iraq
explosion at the Khillani mosque in the capital`s commercial area of Sinak sent smoke billowing over concrete buildings.
It came two days after the expiration of a curfew following last week`s bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra.
Gunfire erupted shortly after the blast, which police said occurred in a parking lot near the mosque, causing the outer wall and a building just inside it to crumble.
Police and hospital officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they feared retribution, said at least 75 people were killed and 204 were wounded, adding that the toll could rise as bodies were pulled from the debris.
The mosque`s imam, Sheik Saleh al-Haidari, said it was a truck bomb and the explosion hit worshippers as they were leaving afternoon prayers.
"This attack was planned and carried out by sick souls, damaging the mosque`s outer wall and collapsing my office and the room above it," al-Haidari told The Associated Press by telephone.
"There are number of bodies being pulled from the rubble and a number of worshippers were martyred or injured," he said, adding that he was not inside the mosque when the blast occurred.
AP Television News video showed a huge pile of rubble where the wall used to be, but its turquoise dome was intact. The Imam Ali hospital in the Shiite district of Sadr City was packed with victims, many badly burned.
Karim Abdullah, the 35-year-old owner of a clothing store, said he was on his way to pray at the mosque when the explosion caused his motorcycle to wobble, forcing him to pull over.
"I stopped in shock as I saw the smoke and people on the ground. I saw two or three men in flames as they were getting out of their car," he added.
Meanwhile about 10,000 US soldiers northeast of the capital used heavily armored Stryker and Bradley fighting vehicles to battle with Iraqi gunmen.
The troops, under cover of attack helicopters, killed at least 22 insurgents in the offensive, the US military said.
The raids, dubbed "Operation Arrowhead Ripper," took place in Baqouba, the capital of Diyala province, and involved air assaults under the cover of darkness, the military said. The operation was still in its opening stages, it added.
The commander of Iraqi military operations in Diyala, Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim al-Rubaie, said handcuffs, swords and electricity cables had been seized from militant safe houses in the area.
The operation was part of new US and Iraqi attacks on Baghdad`s northern and southern flanks, which military officials said were aimed at clearing out Sunni insurgents and Shiite militiamen.
The hard-line Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars denounced the joint operations in Diyala, calling them "barbaric acts" and promising they "will not stop the people from persisting in their efforts to gain their liberty, unity and independence."
In recent months, the verdant orange and palm groves of Diyala have become one of the most fiercely contested regions in Iraq.
Separately, the US military announced the death of an American soldier in Baghdad. The soldier was killed by small arms fire during combat in an eastern section of the capital, a military statement said. No other soldiers were wounded in the attack, which took place Monday, it said.
The death brought to at least 3,528 the number of US military personnel who have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an AP count. The figure includes seven military civilians. At least 2,889 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military`s numbers.
In southern Iraq, police and hospital officials said the death toll reached 30 in clashes that continued into a second day between Mahdi Army fighters and Iraqi security forces in Nasiriyah, about 200 miles southeast of Baghdad.
Some 150 people were wounded, authorities said. The officials, who declined to be identified because they feared retribution, said most of the casualties were police officers or militiamen. A delegation from Muqtada al-Sadr`s office arrived in the city to try to end the fighting, according to the city council.
A curfew was imposed on Nasiriyah on Monday, and remained in effect a day later.
In other violence reported by police, a roadside bomb killed the head of a Shiite tribe and two people traveling with him near Hillah, about 60 miles south of Baghdad.
A roadside bomb also missed a police patrol but hit two civilian cars in the Shiite neighborhood of Zafaraniyah in southeastern Baghdad, killing two people and wounding five.