NAJAF, Iraq, February 23, 2006 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – The main Sunni political coalition announced on Thursday, February 23, boycotting talks on government formation after attacks on Sunni mosques and people claimed at least 130, while Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr ordered protection for Sunni mosques in predominantly Shiites areas.

The National Concord Front boycotted an emergency meeting called Thursday by President Jalal Talabani discuss to the growing sectarian violence that flared up after an important Shiite shrine was bombed Wednesday, February 22, in the northern city of Samarra, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

In a message to Talabani, the alliance, which controls 44 of the 275 seats in the newly-elected parliament, called on the Shiite-led government to clearly condemn attacks on Sunnis and deploy security forces to protect it.

The reprisal attacks were triggered by a bombing attack that destroyed the golden dome of Imam Ali Al-Hadi shrine, one of Iraq's most famous Shiite religious places, Wednesday.

The Association of Muslim Scholars, the highest Sunni religious authority in Iraq, has blamed some Shiite authorities of fueling the latest sectarian tension.

"The AMS points the finger of blame at certain Shiite religious authorities for calling for demonstrations," said spokesman Sheikh Abdul Salam al-Qubaisi.

Top Shiite religious authority, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, has called on Iraqis to take to the streets to protest the shrine bombing.

He, however, urged the protestors to remain calm and to refrain from seeking vengeance.

Qubaisi criticized some Shiites for not heeding Sistani's calls for restraint.

"He said taking over Sunni mosques was forbidden ... I think that some listen to Sistani only when it suits them."

The AMS and the Sunni Islamic Party had branded as "terrorist" the bombing attack against the Shiite shrine.

Al-Sadr has ordered the protection of the Sunni mosques in the predominantly Shiites areas against reprisal attacks.

"Sadr has ordered the Mehdi Army to protect Sunni mosques and religious places in Basra and in other regions" where his movement is influential, Saheb al-Amiri of the Sadr's Office told AFP.

At least 130 people were killed in reprisal attacks on Sunni mosques across the war-torn country.

Eighty bullet-ridden corpses were brought to the Baghdad morgue.

"I've only been able to carry out autopsies on 25 of them," the deputy director of the morgue, Doctor Kais Mohammed, told AFP, adding that all had been shot.

The bodies, which had been dumped in Baghdad and its suburbs, could not be immediately identified.

Another 47 bodies of men shot to death were discovered along with 10 burned out cars alongside a road near Nahrawan, southeast of Baghdad, police said.

The corpses were found near a brick factory and it was not immediately known if the victims were workers from the factory.

Early Thursday, three journalists working for the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya television were found shot dead after being attacked while reporting on the shrine bombing.

At least 12 people were also killed in a powerful roadside bomb attack in Baquba, northeast of Baghdad.

One Sunni was also killed and two wounded in a drive by shooting outside a Sunni mosque in Baquba, police said.

On Wednesday, six Sunnis were killed in sectarian attacks in Baghdad where one Sunni mosque was set ablaze and others fired upon.

In the bloodiest apparent reprisal attack, men in police uniform seized 12 people, including two Egyptians, from a prison in the mainly Shiite city of Basra, killing 11 of them.

Two Sunni people were also killed in an attack on offices of the Islamic Party in Basra.