Suspected Sunni rebels destroyed the twin minarets of a revered Shia Moslem shrine in the Iraqi city of Samarra, further fanning sectarian violence that has hampered reconstruction work including rebuilding of the country's vital oil sector, writes Nassir Shirkhani.
The assault on the Askariya Shrine heightened fears of a new round of intra-Moslem bloodshed and prompted the 30-member bloc of radical Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr to suspend its membership in Iraq's parliament.
The bombing was a repeat of a similar 2006 attack that destroyed the shrine's famous golden dome and unleashed a wave of retaliatory sectarian violence.
To ward off a surge of violence, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki quickly imposed an indefinite curfew on vehicle traffic and large gatherings in Baghdad.
Iraqi officials said the bombing was likely the work of al-Qaeda, whose militants have recently moved into Samarra from surrounding areas.
The Sadrist bloc in parliament said its members were boycotting parliament until the government takes "realistic" steps to rebuild the Askariya shrine.
The move is likely to weaken the Shia-dominated government and delay adoption of a series of laws needed to build national reconciliation in Iraq.
© Upstream 2007
