Iraq Watch: February 22, 2006

Bomb Targets Samarra Shrine; Reprisal Attacks Ensue

BAGHDAD, Iraq - In an attack apparently aimed at increasing sectarian strife militants on Wednesday, disguised in Iraqi police uniforms, made their way into the historic Askariya shrine in Samarra placed two bombs under the mosque's famous golden dome and detonated them shortly before 7:00 a.m. The blasts left the dome of the religiously significant structure in shambles infuriating Shiites throughout the Muslim world.

The shrine is considered to be one of Shiite Islam's holiest sites. The 10th and 11th Shiite imams, Ali al-Hadi and Hassan al-Askari, are buried underneath the structure. The site also marks the spot where the 12th Shiite imam, Mohammed al-Mahdi, or the "hidden imam", disappeared in 878 AD. Shiites believe that the 12th imam will one day reappear and establish Islam throughout the world.

The mausoleum was originally constructed during the 10th and 11 centuries. The golden dome, comprised of over 72,000 individual golden pieces, was added to the structure in 1905. The shrine serves as a place of pilgrimage for thousands of Shiite Muslims every year.

As word of the shrine attack spread in an already tense sectarian atmosphere, thousands of Shiites throughout Iraq began taking to the streets in protest. Demonstrations erupted in Shiite cities throughout the country. Protesting was reported at the site of the attack in Samarra, south to Baghdad, and further south into the Shiite heartland.

Despite pleas from leading Shiite figures, such as the revered Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, to refrain from revenge attacks, at least 90 Sunni mosques have been assaulted according to the Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP). In addition, at least seven Sunnis - including three clerics - have been killed in reprisal violence throughout the day.

In the largely Shiite city of Basra, home to over two and a half million, Shiite militiamen stormed a prison, dragged 12 Sunni prisoners out and executed them. The inmates killed included seven foreigners. Shiite militiamen also attacked Sunnis instillations throughout the Basra sparking running gun battles. The aforementioned Iraqi Islamic Party's Basra offices were said to be on fire following one such attack. Elsewhere in the city, on the banks of the Shatt al-Arab waterway, Shiites burned a Sunni shrine containing the tomb of Talha bin Obeid-Allah, a seventh century companion of the Prophet Muhammad.

In other violence Wednesday, two Iraqi police officers were gunned down in Baqouba while a roadside bomb killed two schoolchildren in Kut, southeast of the capital. In Muqdadiyah, north of Baghdad, an assassination attempt on a judge left him seriously injured and four of his bodyguards dead.