BAGHDAD, June 16: At least 11 people were killed on Friday by a suicide bomber carrying explosives in his shoes inside a Shia mosque, despite a security crackdown in the Iraqi capital and claims of success in the battle against Al Qaeda, police said. The blast, which also wounded 25 people, came less than an hour before the Friday prayers, when the Baratha mosque in Baghdad would have been filled with thousands of worshippers.

The mosque, which is used by members of Iraq’s Shia majority, had been attacked before. On April 7, a triple suicide bombing by men dressed as women targeted worshippers just as they were leaving, killing 90 and wounding 175.

Sheikh Jalaluddin al-Saghir, the mosque’s imam, said the bomber had shoes filled with explosives and that he himself was a main target.

“There were two pairs of shoes full of explosives. Our mosque guard found one pair at the entrance of the mosque and went searching for another one using a metal detector,” Saghir told AFP.