IRAQ

At least 100 Shiite worshippers killed near the Iranian border

Photo: A woman sits on a destroyed car at the site where two suicide car bombers detonated vehicles in Baghdad.

BAGHDAD, Iraq- Suicide bombers struck in eastern Iraq and the capital on Friday, killing at least 100 Shiite worshippers near the Iranian border and eight Iraqis at a hotel - the second attack against a compound housing Western media and contractors in less than a month. At sunset, hours after the nearly simultaneous bombings of two mosques in the border town of Khanaqin, dozens of people were still searching for relatives and friends. Others collected shredded copies of the Muslim holy book, the Qur'an. One survivor, Omar Saleh, said he was on his knees bowing in prayer when the bomb exploded at the Grand Mosque. "The roof fell on us and the place was filled with dead bodies," Saleh, 73, said from his hospital bed. The bloodshed came as the United Nations' top human rights official added her voice to calls for an international inquiry into allegations that Iraq's U.S.-backed government tortures and abuses prisoners, including Sunni Arab insurgents. "I urge authorities to consider calling for an international inquiry," Louise Arbour, a Canadian, said in Geneva, where she serves as the UN's high commissioner for human rights. Friday's attack in Khanaqin was ominous because it took place in a largely peaceful area about 10 kilometres from Iran. So few incidents have occurred there Iraqi authorities believe they can soon take over security responsibilities from the U.S.-led coalition. That assumption has now been called into question. It was the deadliest attack since Sept. 29, when three suicide car bombers struck in the mostly Shiite town of Balad just north of Baghdad, killing at least 99 people. Foreign Affairs Minister Pierre Pettigrew condemned the attacks in a statement Friday. "These attacks on Shia mosques during Friday prayers targeted innocent Iraqis in a place and time meant for peace and contemplation. Canada condemns these acts of hatred and cowardice," he said. "The perpetrators of today's bombings were trying to destabilize Iraq's political process and create further sectarian strife. Canada encourages all Iraqis to remain resilient and unified in their efforts to create a stable and democratic Iraq. We stand with Iraqis to decry these acts of terror and attempts at provocation, and remain fully committed to assisting with the reconstruction of Iraq." On Friday, the suicide bombers wandered into the Sheik Murad mosque and the Grand Mosque during noon prayers and detonated explosives strapped to their bodies, police and survivors said. The blasts ripped down part of the Grand Mosque's roof and heavily damaged the other place of worship. Salem Ali Mohammed, 32, said he was in the Grand Mosque's washroom when he heard a strong explosion. "I thought a rocket had hit the mosque," he said. "I walked toward the prayer room and saw that the ceiling had collapsed and dead bodies were everywhere." Kamran Ahmed, director of the Khanaqin General Hospital, said 74 people were killed and at least 100 were wounded at the mosques, which are about a kilometre apart in the largely Kurdish town about 145 kilometres northeast of Baghdad. In Baghdad, the attack on the Hamra hotel began about 8:12 a.m. when a white van exploded along the concrete blast wall protecting the compound, blowing a hole in the barrier. Less than a minute later, a water tanker packed with explosives plowed through the breach in an apparent bid to reach the hotel buildings. But the driver, apparently blocked by smoke and debris, detonated his vehicle just inside the barrier, destroying several nearby homes and blowing out windows in the hotel. Eight Iraqis were killed and at least 43 people were wounded, officials said. "What we have here appears to be two suicide car bombs (that) attempted to breach the security wall in the vicinity of the hotel complex, and I think the target was the Hamra Hotel," U.S. Brig.-Gen. Karl Horst told reporters at the scene. News organizations housed at the Hamra include NBC News and The Boston Globe. The tactics in the Hamra attack were similar to those employed in the Oct. 24 triple vehicle assault on the Palestine Hotel, where employees of The Associated Press, Fox News and other organizations live and work. In that attack, which killed 17 Iraqis, one vehicle blew a hole in a concrete blast wall, opening the way for a cement truck packed with explosives to penetrate the compound. The truck detonated only about a metre or two into the compound after U.S. troops raked the vehicle with automatic fire and the driver got stuck in debris. A third vehicle went off a short distance away. Mike Boettcher of NBC News, who was in the Hamra when Friday's bomb exploded, said on the Today show that "we were blown out of our beds." "We got down on the floor and crawled, and then the second bomb hit, and we were blown back," Boettcher said. "To be in the middle of this - not a pleasant experience, but I feel a lot more sorry for those people who were killed just outside our compound, who didn't have that blast wall to protect them. That saved our lives." Sa'ad al-Izzi, an Iraqi journalist with The Boston Globe, said he awakened "to a huge explosion which broke all the glass and displaced all the window and doors frames." The latest attacks in Khanaqin and Baghdad have brought to at least 1,617 the number of Iraqis killed in suicide attacks since the Shiite-led government took power April 28, according to an Associated Press count. At least 3,429 have been wounded. The attack against the Shiite worshippers occurred amid rising tensions between Iraq's majority Shiite and minority Sunni communities. Tensions escalated after last weekend's discovery of 173 malnourished detainees, some bearing signs of torture, in an Interior Ministry building in Baghdad seized by American soldiers. Most of the prisoners are believed to have been Sunni Arabs, and the discovery lent credence to allegations of abuse levelled against troops controlled by the Shiite-led Interior Ministry. -By R. Reed.

JORDAN

Al-Zarqawi threatens Jordan's king, says bombers did not target Amman wedding

AMMAN, Jordan- An audiotape in the name of "al-Qaida in Iraq" threatened on Friday to chop off King Abdullah's head and bomb more hotels and tourist sites. The speaker on the tape, identified as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, also said the group's suicide bombers did not intend to bomb a Jordanian wedding party at an Amman hotel last week, killing about 30 people. "Your star is fading. You will not escape your fate, you descendant of traitors. We will be able to reach your head and chop it off," al-Zarqawi said, referring to the king. Al-Zarqawi told Jordanians to stay away from bases used by U.S. forces in Jordan, hotels and tourist sites in Amman, the Dead Sea and the southern resort of Aqaba and embassies of governments participating in the war in Iraq, saying they would be targeted. He underlined that "al-Qaida in Iraq" is not targeting fellow Muslims. "People of Islam in Jordan, we want to assure you that we are extremely careful over your lives . . . you are more beloved to us than ourselves," he said. The authenticity of the audiotape, posted on an Islamic militant web forum, could not be confirmed independently, but the voice resembled that of al-Zarqawi on previous tapes. The tape was posted following widespread outrage over the Nov. 9 bombings against three Amman hotels that killed 59 people, 30 of them in a Jordanian-Palestinian wedding party held in a ballroom. Even contributors to militant web forums who lionize al-Zarqawi and praise his attacks criticized the bombings, saying he should avoid civilians. Al-Zarqawi insisted that the striking of the wedding party at the Radisson SAS hotel was a "lie" and a "forgery" by Jordanian security officials. The Radisson bomber struck a hall where Israeli intelligence officials were meeting at the time, al-Zarqawi claimed. But part of the roof fell in on the wedding hall, either from the blast or even, he said, from a separate bomb placed in the roof, though not by al-Qaida. "Our martyred brother's target was halls being used at the time by intelligence officers from some of the infidel crusader nations and their lackeys," he said. "Our brothers knew their targets with great precision." "God knows we chose these hotels only after more than two months of close observation (that proved) that these hotels had become headquarters for the Israeli and American intelligence," he said. "People of Jordan, we did not undertake to blow up any wedding parties," he said. "For those Muslims who were killed, we ask God to show them mercy, for they were not targets. We did not and will not think for one moment to target them." Al-Zarqawi accused the Jordanian government of hiding casualties among Israeli and American agents. "I defy the renegade government to show us the losses among the Jews," he said. Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev called al-Zarqawi's claims "ludicrous." "This man has the blood of many innocents on his hands, most of them Muslims," Regev said. "To claim that those innocent victims in Jordan were working for Israel is simply ludicrous and deserves ridicule." The Radisson attack involved two bombers: an Iraqi husband and wife. Witnesses told Jordanian security officials that the couple talked their way into the wedding, telling hotel employees they wanted to watch, then went to different sides of the hall. When the woman's explosives belt failed to go off, her husband told her to leave, then he jumped on a table in the ballroom and set off his blast, Jordanian officials have said. Radisson spokesman Bassam al-Bana denied al-Zarqawi's claims about an intelligence meeting, telling The Associated Press, "There were no meetings of Israelis there." The only Israeli killed in the blasts was an Israeli Arab attending the wedding. Four Americans were killed in the triple bombings, including Syrian-born moviemaker Mustafa Akkad and his daughter. Earlier Friday, thousands of flag-waving Jordanians thronged downtown Amman in the "March of the Nation," a noisy, emphatic demonstration against the hotel attacks. "Al-Zarqawi, you coward, what brought you here?" the angry crowd shouted. "Cease, cease, al-Zarqawi, you are a villain!" the throng chanted. "Cease, Cease, you terrorist, you are a coward!" Jordanian television reported that 100,000 people marched; however, that estimate could not be independently verified. The size of the crowd appeared to be much larger than protests in the days right after the bombings. "I came specifically to say to those terrorists and al-Zarqawi that we are all united against them. We do not want them on our land," said Ghazi al-Hajjaj, 43, who travelled from Tafila, 185 kilometres south of Amman, to attend the rally. Palestinians from Jordan's 13 refugee camps also participated.

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