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Insurgents launch attacks on shrines

A suicide bomber blew up a car yesterday south of Kirkuk, killing two Iraqi Army soldiers and three bystanders, while parliament negotiators facing an impasse in forming Iraq's new government tried to come up with a Sunni Arab candidate to serve as speaker of the newly elected National Assembly.

The explosion in Tuz Khormato, 90km south of Kirkuk, injured at least 16 people, including eight soldiers, said Sarhad Qader, a police official. The blast occurred near an Iraqi Army checkpoint set up to guard a Shiite shrine where pilgrims had gathered to celebrate a major religious festival.

Yesterday's religious holiday marks the end of a 40-day mourning period for one of Shiites' most important saints, the grandson of Prophet Muhammad, Imam Hussein, who was killed in a seventh century battle.

Officials have been on the alert for attacks targeting Shiite Muslims during the festival, which draws people to shrines across Iraq. The biggest gathering is in Karbala, where hundreds of thousands of Shiite pilgrims visited two holy shrines yesterday and marched and beat their chests with their fists in a sign of mourning.

On Wednesday, gunmen fired on pilgrims in southern Iraq, killing one person. Two days earlier, two separate attacks on pilgrims left four dead, including two police officers guarding the faithful.

Also yesterday, a roadside bomb injured six policemen on patrol and one bystander in the southern city of Basra, police official Lieutenant Colonel Karim al-Zubaidi said.

And the US military announced that a US soldier had died from injuries he sustained during a clash in northern Mosul. The soldier was among several people injured Wednesday during a routine check of vehicles, Lieutenant Colonel Andre Lance said.

Several US soldiers tried to approach a taxi, and gunmen inside opened fire, Lance said. The soldiers returned fire, killing the assailants, and the taxi exploded, likely because it was carrying explosives, Lance said.

The soldiers then came under fire again and several were injured, including the soldier who later died of his wounds, Lance said. He added that two civilians were killed, but Iraqi police said six civilians died in the incident.

The name of the soldier was being withheld pending notification of next of kin.

As of Wednesday, at least 1,529 members of the US military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

Gunmen also briefly attacked a police station in Samarra, north of Baghdad, with rocket propelled grenades and gunfire, police officer Qasim Muhamed said.

In the capital, lawmakers were working to agree on a Sunni Arab lawmaker to serve as speaker of the National Assembly, part of a plan to incorporate Sunnis into the new government.
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