MOSUL, Iraq, (Reuters) – A suicide car bomber killed 38 people as they left a Shi’ite Muslim mosque just outside the volatile northern Iraqi city of Mosul, officials said yesterday, while bombs in Baghdad killed another 12.
Police said 140 people were wounded in the suicide bombing, one of several attacks in recent weeks targeting Shi’ite religious gatherings. The provincial governor, Atheel al-Nujaifi, said 37 people died in the attack and 276 were wounded. A week ago a series of blasts outside Shi’ite mosques in Baghdad killed 31 people. Sunni Islamist militants like al Qaeda, who consider Shi’ites heretics, are often blamed.
“I was in the house when this explosion happened. I hurried to the mosque to search for my father in the ruins…I found him seriously wounded, and took him to hospital, but he died,” said Khalil Qasim, 19, crying.
Mosul authorities urged citizens to donate blood and appealed for construction vehicles to lift debris trapping victims of the attack, which took place in Shreikhan, a majority Shi’ite Turkmen village just north of Mosul city.
Bombings and shootings are reported almost daily in Mosul.
The insurgency in Iraq has waned in the last 18 months, but insurgents have been able to hide out in the mountainous areas around Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, and have exploited divisions between Mosul’s feuding Arabs and Kurds.
