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BEIJING,
Feb.23 -- A dawn bomb attack wrecked a major Shi'ite Muslim shrine in the Iraqi
city of Samarra yesterday, sparking protests, some of them violent, and forcing
an urgent government appeal to avoid sectarian reprisals.
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| Angry Iraqi Shi'ites demonstrate near the
house of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in the holy city of Najaf south of
Baghdad, to protest against the bombing of the holy shrine of al-Hadi in
the city of Samarra yesterday.(Photo:
Xinhua/Reuters) | Some Sunni mosques were damaged
in revenge attacks, Shi'ite militiamen posted themselves on streets and Iraq's
senior Shi'ite cleric called for peaceful protests.
Iraq's Grand Ayatollah Ali al- Sistani was shown on
television meeting fellow senior Shi'ite clerics yesterday in an all but
unprecedented appearance by the top religious authority after the attack on the
Shi'ite shrine.
Al-Forat television, run by a Shi'ite political
party, showed the ageing and reclusive Sistani flanked by his three most senior
colleagues in the holy city of Najaf after Sistani called for peaceful protests
following the attack in Samarra.
The Iraqi president said the attackers wanted to
derail efforts to form a national unity government. Iraq's national security
adviser accused al Qaida-inspired Sunni militants of blasting the Shi'ite shrine
to foment civil war. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.
Gunmen burst into Samarra's Golden Mosque, one of
Iraq's four holiest Shi'ite sites, and used explosives to bring down its
100-year-old gilded dome, among the biggest in the Muslim world, senior
officials said. No casualties were reported.
An Interior Ministry spokesman said the attackers
wore police uniforms, tied up the mosque guards and set the charges.
National Security Adviser Mowaffaq al-Rubaie, a
Shi'ite, who blamed the attack on al-Qaida, told state television 10 suspects
had been arrested. "They will fail to draw the Iraqi people into civil war as
they have failed in the past," he said.
As gunmen attacked Sunni mosques, Prime Minister
Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a Shi'ite, declared three days of mourning and called for
Muslim unity. He said the interim government had sent officials to Samarra, 100
kilometres north of Baghdad.
Security forces sealed off the mainly Sunni city and
police said they had fired over demonstrators' heads at one point as they
chanted religious and anti-American slogans.
Top Sunni political leader Adnan al-Dulaimi urged
Jaafari to impose a curfew to protect Sunnis and accused Shi'ite gunmen of
killing a Sunni cleric in Baghdad.
Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, powerful leader of the Shi'ite
SCIRI party, which has its own armed wing, said: "The great Iraqi people will
not keep silent over this grave crime."
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, a Sunni Kurd, also
condemned the attack.
In the mainly Shi'ite city of Basra, police said
gunmen fired on the office of the main Sunni political group, the Iraqi Islamic
Party. Witnesses said rocket-propelled grenades damaged a Sunni mosque in the
city. A reporter said Sunni and Shi'ite gunmen were trading heavy fire.
Police said an Iraqi Islamic Party office was burned
on the outskirts of Baghdad.
Gunmen fired on a Sunni mosque in Baghdad's Ghazaliya
district and burned its gate, police and witnesses said. A Sunni clerical group
said three Baghdad mosques were fired on. A Sunni cleric said rocket-propelled
grenades hit mosques in the eastern area of Baladiyat. Iraqi troops prevented
journalists reaching the scene. Some similar reports turned out to be false.
Thousands of people marched in Shi'ite towns across
the country and through the capital, condemning the Samarra attack.
Black-clad militiamen of the Mehdi Army, loyal to
Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, were out in force in Shi'ite strongholds like
Sadr City in Baghdad and the southern city of Samawa.
US officials, most recently Ambassador Zalmay
Khalilzad on Monday, are pressing Jaafari to form a cabinet with support across
the nation to avert the threat of a civil war that could thwart Washington's
efforts to withdraw its 130,000 troops.
Jaafari angrily dismissed the envoy's intervention.
Sunni rebels are strong in Samarra and there have
been attacks recently on Shi'ite pilgrims visiting the shrine to the revered
9th-century Imam Ali al-Hadi and his son, Imam Hassan al-Askari. Shi'ite
websites said relics of the buried imams, including a helmet and shield, were
damaged in the explosions.
Outside Grand Ayatollah Sistani's office, where he
was meeting his most senior colleagues, 2,000 demonstrators chanted: "Rise up
Shi'ites! Shi'ites take revenge! Rise up Shi'ites!"
"For the Shi'ites ... this is a major assault
comparable to an attack on Mecca for all Muslims," said Hazim al-Naimi, a
political science professor at Baghdad's Mustansiriya University. "We will
definitely see more sectarianism after this attack ... It could push the country
closer to civil war."
(Source: China Daily) | 
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