BAGHDAD,
April 7, 2006 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – At least 69
Iraqis were killed and over 130 wounded on Friday, April 7, when three
bombers blew up themselves at a Shiite mosque in the capital Baghdad.
"At
least two of the bombers were dressed as women and blew themselves up
inside the mosque complex," a security official told Agence
France-Presse (AFP).
The
attacks occurred outside northern Baghdad's Baratha mosque as
worshippers left the mosque after the weekly Friday prayer.
A
health ministry source was quoted as saying that the bombings killed
69 people and wounded another 130.
Victims
were seen carried away in handcarts and blankets, as men searched for
relatives who were at the mosque.
Patches
of blood and dozens of shoes were left scattered outside the mosque.
Iraqi
authorities appealed on state television for blood donations for the
wounded.
Witness
Account
Sheikh
Jalaluddin Al-Saghir, who led the prayers at the mosque, said
"preliminary investigation shows that a woman, or a man dressed
as a woman, managed to reach the security post of the female section
and blew her/himself up.
He
told the Dubai-based Al Arabiya television that two other bombers
entered the mosque in the aftermath.
"One
went towards my private office and one was in the mosque's main prayer
hall and they blew themselves up amid the crowds."
The
war-torn country has also been gripped by a series of deadly attacks
over the past few days.
A
car bomb exploded close to the revered Imam Ali shrine in An-Najaf
city Thursday, killing 10 people, two months after a celebrated Shiite
shrine was devastated in the northern city of Samarra, sparking a
deadly wave of Shiite attacks that killed 450 people, mostly Sunnis.
At
least 40 people were killed on March 27, in a suicide bombing at an
army recruitment centre near Mosul in northern Iraq.
Two
weeks earlier, some 46 people were killed and more than 200 wounded
when six car bombs devastated four packed markets in a Baghdad Shiite
neighborhood.
