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Two suicide bombers kill scores in Shiite mosque

Two suicide attackers wearing women's cloaks blew themselves up yesterday in a Shiite mosque in northern Baghdad, killing at least 46 people and wounding scores, police said. It was the second major attack against Shiite targets in as many days.

The violence came as US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad warned that Iraq faces the possibility of sectarian civil war if efforts to build a national unity government do not succeed, and that such a conflict could affect the entire Middle East.

Police Lieutenant Colonel Falah al-Mohammedawi said the blasts occurred at the Buratha mosque, which is affiliated with the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the main Shiite party.

First reports said the explosions were caused by mortar fire, but al-Mohammedawi said police had confirmed they were suicide attacks.

The attack took place as worshippers were leaving at the end of Friday prayers, the main weekly religious service. Earlier yesterday, the Interior Ministry cautioned people in Baghdad to avoid crowds near mosques and markets due to a car bomb threat.

A prominent Shiite politician, Jalal Eddin al-Sagheer, was among the worshippers but police said he was unhurt.

Rescuers carried the bodies from the mosque compound on makeshift wooden wheelbarrows and loaded them on the backs of pickup trucks. The Baghdad city council urged Iraqis to donate blood for those wounded.

On Thursday, a car bomb exploded about 250m from the Imam Ali mosque in Najaf, the most sacred shrine in Iraq for Shiite Muslims. Ten people were killed, police said.

The Interior Ministry had cautioned Baghdad residents to avoid crowds near mosques and markets due to a car bomb threat.

The attacks were likely to increase tensions between Sunni and Shiite Muslims, already at a high level following the Feb. 22 blast at a Shiite shrine in Samarra and reprisal killings. That bombing triggered a war of reprisal attacks against Sunni mosques and clerics.

"This explosion is trying to provoke Iraqis to sectarian sedition through bombing the mosques," said Salah Abdul-Razzaq, a Baghdad city council member.

The Interior Ministry, which oversees police, said it received intelligence that insurgents were preparing to set off seven car bombs in Baghdad.

Al-Mohammedawi said the alert would remain until the bombs were discovered and deactivated.

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