Thousands of Iraqis protest US security pact

A suicide bomber killed 12 people in an Iraqi mosque yesterday while thousands of followers of anti-American Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr demonstrated in Baghdad after Parliament passed a pact allowing US troops to remain through 2011.

Some 9,000 people protested in Baghdad's Shi'ite slum of Sadr City after Friday prayers, burning a US flag and holding banners reading "No, no to the agreement". About 2,500 people held a similar rally in the southern city of Basra.

"I express my condolences to the Iraqi people on this grave occasion, in which they are harmed by th ... pact of shame and degradation," Cleric Sadr, whose militia has fought US troops many times, said in a statement read to followers on his behalf.

Cleric Sadr told his followers to wear black to mourn the passage of the deal, under which US troops will withdraw from Iraqi towns and cities by mid-2009, and leave the country by the end of 2011.

Earlier yesterday, a suicide bomber wearing an explosives-packed vest killed 12 people and wounded 17 others inside a Shi'ite mosque visited mainly by Sadr supporters 60 kilometres south of Baghdad, police said.

The US military said the bomber killed eight people and wounded 15 others as they queued outside the mosque to enter for Friday prayers.

UN officials say such attacks are aimed at provoking renewed sectarian fighting between minority Sunni Arabs, once affiliated with al Qaeda, and the majority Shi'ites who are now in charge of Iraq.

In central Baghdad a suicide car bomber killed two people and wounded 14 others, police said, and in Sadr City a roadside bomb targeting a US patrol wounded one person, the US military said.

Sadrist lawmakers opposed the security deal with the United States to the last, banging desks and chanting slogans during the parliamentary session that passed it on Thursday.

They consider the US military presence an occupation and want an immediate withdrawal.

The deal curbs US military powers to arrest Iraqis and conduct operations, shifting greater responsibility onto Iraq's security forces to keep the peace. Violence is at four-year lows, but car bombings and suicide blasts are still common.

Nor does the security deal mention 2,000 members of Iranian exile group the Mujahideen Organization of Iran, who have been housed at Camp Ashraf north of Baghdad for two decades. They could face execution if sent back to Iran, Amnesty said.