24 February 2006
Hopes that Iraq's rival factions would come together to build a government of national unity faded last night as a wave of reprisal attacks followed the bombing of one of the holiest Shia sites.
Sunni politicians yesterday pulled out of talks to form a government, while Shia leaders demanded that their militias be allowed to keep order as attacks across the country claimed the lives of more than 100 people in the wake of the bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra.
In one incident, gunmen at a checkpoint outside Baghdad pulled more than 40 people from vehicles and shot them dead, local officials claimed. The victims were reportedly returning from a mixed Sunni and Shia demonstration against the bombing of the mosque.
The fallout from the Golden Mosque attack has hardened the attitudes of both Sunni and Shia politicians against co-operation over security. The bombing and subsequent killings threaten to overwhelm US and UK efforts to encourage Iraqi factions to work together and to persuade the rest of the world to increase contacts with the country.
In Washington, the State Department insisted that US policy in Iraq was succeeding and denied that political negotiations had collapsed, only that they had paused. "Come on, let's not blow this out of proportion," said spokesman Adam Ereli. He denied reports of widespreadviolence, speaking of "some incidents".
The Iraqi government will today impose a daytime curfew in Baghdad and three provinces.
Western leaders continued to urge Iraq's leaders not to let the Samarra bombing be the catalyst for open civil war. "The perpetrators of this act had one motive and one alone," said Tony Blair, UK prime minister. "They want to cause strife and violence between Sunni and Shia to derail democracy currently taking hold in Iraq."
Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, deputy director for planning at US Central Command, said: "I don't think Iraq is on the verge of civil war . . . neither do I think we can sit back and suggest that it couldn't happen."
He said it had the hallmarks of the "classic handiwork of (Abu Musab al-) Zarqawi" in that it was an attempt to "incite photogenic chaos". But he added that he had no evidence that the self proclaimed leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq was behind the attack.
Sunni leaders yesterday sought apologies from Shia counterparts for a wave of reprisal attacks against Sunni mosques throughout the country. But Iraqi Shia were in no mood for apology, blaming Sunni politicians for protecting extremist preachers.
After previous attacks on Shia religious targets, clerics including the venerated Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and the younger, more radical, Moqtada al-Sadr have been able to prevent widespread reprisals. Mr al-Sadr said his militia could protect holy sites: "If the government had real sovereignty, then nothing like this would have happened. Brothers in the Mahdi Army must protect all Shia shrines and mosques, especially in Samarra."
By Daniel Dombey, Steve Negus and Demetri Sevastopulo
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