Mosque bomb kills 14 in Iraq

A SUICIDE car bomber killed 14 Shiite worshippers as they left a Baghdad mosque yesterday and, at a village south of the city, another attacker drove an ambulance packed with explosives into a wedding party of a tribe who had clashed with Sunni insurgents, killing seven.

The deaths ratchet up tension between Iraq’s religious communities just over a week before landmark elections.

In a sign of the insurgents’ confidence, a group also beheaded an Iraqi soldier in broad daylight in the restive rebel town of Ramadi. They left his body, dressed in army fatigues, in the street with the severed head placed on the torso and a note warning other Iraqi troops to quit.

The first bomb, which exploded at a small green-domed mosque in western Baghdad as the faithful finished praying, wounded 40 people including children, doctors said. The emergency department of a nearby hospital was filled with bloodied bodies.

The ambulance attack was in a village near Youssifiyah, 12 miles from Baghdad.

Members of the Shiite Buamer tribe were at a wedding when the ambulance drove up and exploded. The groom and bride were hurt.

Militants threatening to kill eight Chinese hostages said in a new video they would treat them "mercifully" if China, which opposed the US-led war, banned all Chinese nationals from entering Iraq.

China responded by appealing to "friendship between the Chinese people and the Iraqi people" and said it had already advised its nationals to leave.

Separately yesterday, an Italian soldier was killed during a helicopter patrol in southern Iraq, the Italian defence ministry said. Sergeant Simone Cola, 22, was hit by gunfire while aboard a helicopter patrolling Nasiriyah shortly after noon.

And a group led by the al-Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi beheaded two Iraqis who said they worked at a US base in Iraq. The group posted a video of the killings on the internet.

Islamist militants have stepped up violence ahead of Iraq’s first multi-party election in nearly half a century, scheduled for 30 January. They have also targeted the mosques of rival Muslims in what officials say is an attempt to plunge Iraq into a sectarian civil war.

The Baghdad mosque bombing, timed to coincide with the Muslim feast of Eid al-Adha, is the latest in a string of attacks targeting leaders, mosques and parties representing Shiites, who make up 60 per cent of Iraq’s population.

Shiites are expected to finish on top in the election to the 275-seat national assembly after decades of oppression.

Several Sunni Arab parties say they will boycott the poll because it is not safe for supporters to vote in Sunni areas.

In the past month, a dozen people have died in a car bomb blast outside the offices of a leading Shiite political party and two people considered close to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq’s foremost Shiite cleric, have also been killed. Mr Sistani has overseen the formation of a Shiite-led alliance to contest the poll and has ordered his followers to vote.

Leaders of both communities have urged Iraqis to oppose militants such as Jordan’s Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Iraq’s justice minister, Malek Dohan al-Hasan, said his Shiite community should allow the Sunni minority a share in Iraq’s leadership after next Sunday’s vote. "I ask the Shiites to look around them. You are in an Arab Sunni region. Who will come to your aid if you monopolise power?" he said.