DUBAI, Aug 31: A little known Sunni group said it was behind Wednesday’s mortar attacks that killed at least seven people in Iraq, before a stampede in which hundreds died at a Shia gathering.

“The Mujahideen (holy fighters) this morning attacked ... the nest of rejectionist (Shia) apostates in the Kadhimiya area with mortars and Katyusha (rockets),” Jaysh al-Taefa al-Mansura (Army of the Victorious Sect) said in an Internet statement.

The statement, posted on a Website that often carries postings from Al Qaeda in Iraq and other insurgents, could not be authenticated.

Nearly 700 Shias died in the stampede over a Baghdad bridge provoked by rumours of a suicide bomber.

Before the stampede, at least seven people were killed in three separate mortar attacks on the crowd heading to the Kazmia mosque in the old district of north Baghdad.—Reuters