Suspected Al-Qaida militants blew up two minarets of a revered
Shi'ite mosque in the Iraqi city of Samarra yesterday, targeting a
shrine bombed last year in an attack that unleashed a wave of
sectarian killing.
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Fearing renewed bloodshed, Iraq's government imposed an
indefinite curfew in Baghdad as Shi'ite and Sunni political and
religious leaders called on their followers to remain calm.
In a joint statement, the top US military commander in Iraq,
General David Petraeus, and US ambassador Ryan Crocker called on
Iraqis to "reject this call to violence."
"This brutal action on one of Iraq's holiest shrines is a
deliberate attempt by Al-Qaida to sow dissent and inflame sectarian
strife among the people of Iraq. It is an act of desperation," the
statement said.
Addressing the nation hours after the attack, Shi'ite Prime
Minister Nuri al-Maliki also blamed Al- Qaida for the attack. He
said he had ordered the arrest of security personnel who had been
guarding the mosque, closed after the February 22, 2006, bombing
that destroyed its famed golden dome.
There were no injuries reported in yesterday's attack on the
Golden Mosque, details of which were not immediately clear.
The Iraqi government's spokesman, Ali al-Dabbagh, said it
appeared the mosque's golden minarets had been hit by missiles, but
the US military, quoting police at the scene, said they were
destroyed in near simultaneous explosions heard coming from inside
the mosque compound.
The country's top Shi'ite religious leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali
al-Sistani, urged Shi'ites not to carry out revenge attacks against
Sunni Arabs.
"He condemns the attack and urges calm and not to do acts of
reprisal against Sunnis," said his spokesman, Hamed Khafaf.
A similar call made by Sistani after militants blew up the
mosque's golden dome in February 2006 was ignored as Shi'ite
militiamen took to the streets to take revenge on Sunnis, fuelling
tit-for-tat attacks.
Iraq's Sunni vice-president, Tareq al-Hashemi, said yesterday's
attack was a "desperate attempt to attack the unity of the Iraqi
people and bring back the black events that Iraq witnessed last
year."
The political bloc of fiery anti-American cleric Moqtadaal-Sadr
also urged its supporters to remain calm but said it was suspending
its participation in parliament in protest. Sadr withdrew his six
ministers from the cabinet in April.
After the 2006 bombing, gunmen loyal to Sadr, killed many Sunni
Arabs in revenge attacks.
(China Daily June 14, 2007)
