Iraq in vortex of fire and blood
Another 250 were wounded in the series of car bombs and several mortar blasts in Sadr City, a Shia district.
Talabani is scheduled to meet Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad today. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has also been invited to hold a summit.
Ways that Iran and Syria can cooperate to help Iraq emerge from the current impasse will be studied in the meeting.
With the bombings in Sadr City, the terrorists were clearly trying to undermine the meeting.
Unfortunately, the U.S. occupying forces passively observe such crimes but take no action. Thus, the question arises: If U.S. troops are unable to maintain security in the country, what are they doing in Iraq?
Moreover, certain regional Arab states have turned a blind eye to the horrific crime, which shows that Iraq’s majority is facing an organized domestic, regional, and international plot.
If Iraqis do not stay vigilant and carefully analyze the current situation, the country will face more severe problems in the future.
Baghdad under curfew after 202 killed in deadliest attack
The Iraqi capital was locked down by an indefinite curfew Friday after more than 200 people were killed by a wave of bombings in a Shia slum in by far the deadliest attack since the war in 2003, AFP reported.
The bloodshed continued Friday when a triple bomb attack in the northern town of Tal Afar killed 23 people and wounded another 45.
On Friday cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's political group, which has 30 MPs in the Iraqi parliament, threatened to pull out of the government if Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki met U.S. President George W. Bush in Jordan on November 29.
Iraqi Shia, many weeping, collected bodies of the victims of Thursday's bomb attacks in Baghdad's Sadr City and headed under police protection to the southern shrine city of Najaf for mass burials.
A hospital source said the toll from four car bombs that tore through the Shia bastion had risen to 202 dead and 256 wounded, adding that the figure was expected to rise as many of the wounded were in critical condition.
The attacks prompted the interior ministry to impose an indefinite curfew in the Iraqi capital, which came into force at 8:00 pm (1700 GMT) Thursday.
Iraq also closed its two main airports, in the capital Baghdad and the southern city of Basra, as well as its southern sea ports, a senior government official said.
On Friday, the Muslim day of prayer, a deathly silence gripped the capital, with key roads and bridges empty as residents stayed indoors and vehicles remained off the streets.
In one of the squares in Sadr City, people were still collecting body parts and burying them in a grave.
They planned to build a memorial at the site to mark the most brutal attack so far against the Shia in the conflict that followed the toppling of former president Saddam Hussein in a 2003 U.S.-led invasion.
Almost a thousand people have been killed by violence in Iraq since Saddam was sentenced to death on November 5 for the mass killing of Shias in the 1980s.
Angry mourners blamed followers of Saddam and Sunni leader Hareth al-Dhari, head of the Sunni Muslim Scholars' Association, for the bombings.
Dhari is currently out of Iraq, and local authorities have launched a criminal investigation against him for allegedly inciting sectarian violence.
"The government has been unable to protect us, while the Americans are arousing us to fight against each other," one angry Sadr City Shia said.
Dozens of funeral tents were set up on streets in the district for people to offer their condolences as weeping men, women and children joined the processions heading for Najaf.
Sadr himself in his Friday sermon called on Dhari to issue fatwas to stop Sunni insurgents killing Shias and to restrain them from joining groups such as Al-Qaeda.
A few hours before his sermon, insurgents bombed his movement's office in the restive city of Baquba. There were no casualties.
Thursday's bombings in the Shia heartland of Baghdad are expected to further deepen the rift between the two warring communities.
Premier Maliki appealed for calm but said the attacks posed a grave threat.
Parliamentarian Mahmud Othman said he expected a Shiite backlash.
"There will be a strong reaction to these bombings. Already there are reports of Sunni neighborhoods being attacked last night(Thursday) and the sectarian rift between the two will deepen further," he told AFP.
In the aftermath of the attacks, 13 mortar rounds slammed into Adhamiyah, a Sunni neighbourhood, wounding 10 people. On Friday, nine more mortar shells fell in northwest Baghdad near the Sunni mosque of Umm al-Qura, headquarters of the hardline Sunni Muslim Scholars' Association.
Commenting on the Sadr City bombings, the United Nations Special Representative to Iraq, Ashraf Qazi, said "these crimes can widen the sectarian divide and thrust the country into a cycle of uncontrollable violence threatening the very social fabric of Iraq".
Sadr's group threatened to withdraw from the government if Maliki met Bush, and demanded that the government "specify the nature of its relations with the occupation forces". It also repeated calls for a timetable to pull coalition troops out of Iraq.
Bush and Maliki are expected to discuss new strategies aimed at stopping the bloodshed in Iraq when they meet in Jordan
Iran condemns massacre Iraqi civilians
Iran's Foreign Ministry Spokesman Seyed Mohammad Ali Hosseini on Thursday condemned the explosions in Sadr City.
Hosseini considered the U.S. occupation forces responsible for these savage and terrorist operations and added the catastrophic situation in Iraq is the result of the occupation forces' wrong policies and measures.
Hosseini emphasized occupation of Iraq and the resulting insecurity in that country has inflicted huge losses to the Iraqi nation and the Iraqi people are bearing the brunt of these inhumane approaches everyday.
EU condemns Iraq bombings
The European Commission on Friday condemned the indiscriminate killings in a wave of bombings in Iraq.
"Yesterday we saw the single most lethal attack on civilians in Iraq since 2003. The European Commission strongly condemns all the indiscriminate attacks which have led to shocking numbers killed and wounded in so many tragic incidents recently," said EU External Affairs Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner.
"I appeal to all political, religious and tribal leaders, to call on their supporters to refrain from retaliation and revenge. As violence feeds on violence, the perpetrators are achieving nothing for themselves or their people, only breeding further misery," she added. ------------------ Iraqi president to seek Iranian help---------------
Talabani visits Iran this weekend for talks with President Mahmud Ahmadinejad, in a bid to secure the eastern neighbor’s help in stabilizing war-torn Iraq.
It is his second visit to the Islamic Republic. Iranian Foreign Minister Manuchehr Mottaki said a three-way meeting between Iran, Iraq, and Syria was "not on the agenda".
International and domestic pressure is mounting on the Bush administration to open dialogue with Syria and Iran to find a common approach to restoring stability in Iraq.
Washington's staunch ally, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, has called for greater involvement of Syria and Iran in efforts to secure peace in Iraq and the Middle East.
"We believe that continued insecurity and occupation are two sides of the same coin in the Iraqi problem," Mottaki said on Thursday.
"We think that the two issues should be studied together to find a multilateral solution," the foreign minister added.
The Iraqi president is to arrive in Tehran on Saturday night and due to meet with his Iranian counterpart the following day. ----------------Sunni mosques attacked after deadly Baghdad bombings--------
Several people were feared dead as militias launched apparent revenge attacks on Sunni mosques in Baghdad Friday.
At least four Sunni mosques were attacked by militias in northern Baghdad, a security official said.
A defense ministry official said Friday's clashes were so intense that precise information was difficult to obtain.
"We couldn't intervene, neither us or the police -- it was too fierce, so the Americans had to come in," said the official.
Unconfirmed casualty reports from the various Iraqi security services estimated dozens of people had been killed.
Militia members set fire to the Sunni Nida Allah mosque in Hurriyah, a mixed Sunni-Shia neighborhood next to the Shia district of Kadhimiyah, and then prevented firemen from dousing the blaze. --------------------British soldier killed in Iraq---------------------
A member of Britain's Parachute Regiment was killed Friday after being shot during a search and detention operation in the southern city of Basra, the Ministry of Defense said.
"The soldier sustained gunshot wounds during the operation and was evacuated to a nearby military hospital. Despite the best possible medical care, the soldier later died from his injuries," the MoD said in a statement. ----------------- Sistani calls for self-control among Iraqis-----------
Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the pre-eminent Shia religious figure in Iraq, condemned the bombings and issued condolences to family members of those who were killed. He called for self-control among his followers.