Suicide attack on Iraqi Shi'ite mosque kills 11

A suicide car bomber blew himself up outside a Shi'ite mosque north of Baghdad yesterday, killing 11 and wounding 24, the latest attack in a three-day surge of violence that has killed more than 200 people.

The blast came two days after Iraq's al Qaeda leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, declared an all-out war on the country's Shi'ite Muslim majority.

Iraqi police Captain Saed Ahmed said the bomb went off outside the Great Prophet mosque in Tuz Khurmatu, a mixed Sunni and Shi'ite town 160 kilometres north of the capital, as worshippers were emerging from prayers on the Muslim holy day.

He said a Saudi wearing an explosives-laden belt, who was apparently working with the bomber, was arrested soon after.

Militants have frequently attacked Shi'ite mosques over the past 18 months in an apparent attempt to goad Iraq's Shi'ite majority into retaliation and spark a sectarian civil war with the Sunni Arab minority, once dominant under Saddam Hussein.

There was more violence in Baghdad, where gunmen shot dead two labourers and a government official in drive-by shootings.

Police said the gunmen, travelling in two cars, opened fire on a group of men near the Shi'ite area of Sadr City as they lined up to find jobs, killing two and wounding a dozen. Minutes later they shot and killed a transport ministry official.

Also in Sadr City, gunmen shot dead a Shi'ite prayer leader and wounded two relatives after following his car, police said.

South of Baghdad, a car bomber targeted a police convoy in the town of Hasswa, killing three police and wounding six. West of the capital, a roadside bomb killed four Iraqi troops.

The attacks followed two days of heavy bloodshed, including more than a dozen coordinated car bombings in Baghdad on Wednesday that killed about 150 people and wounded hundreds.

Wednesday was the deadliest day of bombings in Baghdad since the beginning of the US-led war and underlined just how hard US forces are finding it to maintain security in the capital and elsewhere more than 2-1/2 years after they invaded.

The campaign of attacks, many of them claimed by al Qaeda in Iraq, came in response to a US-Iraqi military offensive on the northern town of Tal Afar, for long a rebel stronghold.

Several thousand Iraqi troops, backed by US armoured units and warplanes, launched the assault on the town, near the Syrian border, more than two weeks ago. Yesterday, an Iraqi officer said 95 per cent of Tal Afar had been secured.

US troops were letting residents who fled the fighting return to their homes, although only on foot, witnesses said.

A top US military spokesman said Tal Afar marked just the beginning of what may be a new series of US-backed offensives on rebel towns and cities designed to capture or kill Zarqawi and increase security ahead of a referendum next month when Iraqis will vote on a controversial proposed constitution.

Following Wednesday's violence, the Jordanian Zarqawi issued a recorded message on the Internet threatening an open war on Shi'ites, a move Iraqis fear could push the country closer to a full-blown civil war, with sectarian conflict already common.

However, President Jalal Talabani played down the threat of fighting among Iraq's Shi'ite Arab, Sunni Arab and Kurdish populations, telling reporters at the United Nations World Summit in New York that foreigners were responsible.