Explosion destroys Sunni mosque in Basra

FE Team | Published: June 17, 2007 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

BAGHDAD, June 16 (AP): An explosion leveled a Sunni mosque Saturday in Basra, residents said, in the second retaliatory attack in as many days for the toppling of minarets at a prized Shiite shrine in Samarra.
Iraqi police did not immediately respond to the bombing of the al-Ashrah al-Mubashra mosque, witnesses said, raising fears that the city's Shiite-dominated security forces were unwilling to stop sectarian attacks on Sunni landmarks.
Meanwhile Defense Secretary Robert Gates was in Baghdad, where a citywide curfew remained in place to prevent mosque attacks or other retaliatory violence. He was expected to press the Iraqi government to move more quickly toward political reconciliation and other vital reforms that many see as critical to gaining control of violence in the country.
Bombers loaded into pickup trucks pulled up to the al-Ashrah al-Mubashra mosque in Basra's al-Hakimiya district at dawn, residents in nearby houses said. Minutes after they left, a huge explosion tore through the building, leveling it completely.
It was unclear whether there were any guards present at the time, and why Iraqi security forces did not intervene. Witnesses said they saw no sign of any immediate response from police.
As they were leaving, the insurgents wrote graffiti on the mosque complex's outer wall with the names of revered Shiite saints, witnesses said. They also hoisted a green Shiite flag over a crumbling part of the mosque complex, they said.
Some nearby houses were damaged in the blast, but no injuries were reported.
Basra is Iraq's second-largest city, located 340 miles southeast of Baghdad.
On Friday, police said bombers posing as television cameramen destroyed another important Sunni mosque near Basra, the Talha Bin al-Zubair shrine. Afterward, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered an indefinite curfew in Basra, which remained in effect Saturday.
The attacks were in apparent retaliation for the suspected al-Qaida bombing of the Shiite Askariya shrine in Samarra three days earlier. Wednesday's explosions brought down the mosque's towering minarets and stoked panic that Iraq could fall further into a spiral of sectarian killings.