Bombing inside Shia mosque in Baghdad kills at least 7
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – An explosion rocked a Shia Muslim mosque in Baghdad on Friday, resulting in at least 20 casualties and conflicting reports on the nature of the device used in the attack.
The blast occurred inside the Imam Mahdi mosque in the predominantly Shia neighborhood of al-Baladiyat in the eastern suburbs of Baghdad, a security source told Kurdistan 24. Worshippers had just finished their Friday prayers and were about to leave the site when the bomb detonated.
Bombings that target religious buildings, once common in the bloody sectarian conflict in the years that followed the 2003 toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime, are now rare in Iraq.
The exact number of deaths was not immediately clear, but a witness told Kurdistan 24 that the explosion was "violent," and that at least 20 people were lying on the ground, covered with blood.
Local media Alsumaria reported that the attack was carried out by a “suicide bomber” that had killed at least seven people and injured 20 others in the attack. According to other outlets, however, the bomber had used an improvised explosive device (IED).
No group has yet claimed responsibility.
In previous decades, the building was known as the Mosque of Abdul Rahman al-Kubaisi. After the fall of the former government in 2003, Shia groups took it over and turned it into an establishment exclusive to their sect of Islam, renaming it the Imam Mahdi al-Muntadhar Mosque.
On Thursday, at least four people were wounded when a suicide bomber tried to detonate his vest at a cafeteria in Khanaqin, about 175 kilometers (108 miles) north of Baghdad.
“The attacker, a young man, attempted to blow himself up at the cafeteria, but he failed,” a source told Kurdistan 24.
Editing by John J. Catherine
