BAGHDAD, Nov 24: Gunmen killed dozens of people and burned mosques in Baghdad on Friday and clashes broke out in a district where car bombs killed 202 people the previous day.
As political leaders on all sides pleaded for restraint and imposed a curfew on the capital, gunmen stormed Hurriya, in western Baghdad, burning four mosques and homes.
A source at police headquarters said 30 people were killed and 48 wounded, and residents also spoke of two dozen or more dead after gunmen firing rocket-propelled grenades and machineguns rampaged through the area, setting homes and mosques ablaze.
Late in the evening, gunmen clashed with US-led forces in Sadr City just hours after thousands of mourners streamed on foot behind cars laden with coffins as they began their journey south to Najaf.
Two suicide bombs ripped through a market in northern Iraq, killing 22 people earlier in the day and mortars crashed on rival Baghdad neighbourhoods, ramping up sectarian tension that threatens to push Iraq into all-out civil war.
A resident of Hurriya, Imad al-Din al-Hashemi, said 14 people died in a mosque where he was praying at midday when it was attacked. He said he heard of 10 dead in another mosque.
“They attacked four mosques with rocket-propelled grenades and machinegun fire,” said Hashemi, a university academic.
The interior ministry official said residents were appealing for fire-fighters and ambulances, but the area was too dangerous for police to send reinforcements.
The White House called Thursday's attack a `senseless act’ aimed at creating instability, but some analysts are already saying the country's future is bleak.
“The situation is now moving to some sort of open civil war,” said Iraqi security analyst Mustafa Alani of the Gulf Research Centre, in Dubai.
The Shia faction that controls Sadr City called upon the prime minister to cancel a summit next week with US President George Bush.
Mr Maliki is under pressure from an increasingly anxious Washington to make good on promises to disband Sadr's and other Shia militias, which US officials say control parts of the police and army. But the prime minister is dependent on Sadr and his fellow Shia Islamists to maintain his position.—Reuters
