Iraqi bomber kills 24 in Ramadan attack on mosque

HILLA, Iraq - A suicide car bomber today drove at a mosque south of Baghdad as Shiites were marking the start of the holy month of Ramadan and brought part of the structure crashing down, killing at least 24, police said.

The death toll could rise sharply as a roof had caved in and people were being dug out of the rubble in the darkness, they said. At least 59 others were wounded in the blast at Hilla, 100km south of the capital.

Shiite worshippers, celebrating the start of Ramadan a day after Sunni Muslims, gathered at dusk; the bomber then drove up to the main entrance of the mosque and detonated explosives.

Iraqi and US officials have voiced fears of an increase in violence ahead of the October 15 referendum on a new constitution, which Sunni Arab insurgents have vowed to wreck.

While Sunni Muslims, who make up the bulk of the world's Muslim believers, began the fasting month of Ramadan on Tuesday, Shiites, who are the majority community in Iraq, started to observe the rituals from Wednesday.

Hilla, the capital of Babil province, lies on one of Iraq's sectarian faultlines, with a large Shiite population living among Sunni Arabs, some of whom were encouraged to settle there under the rule of Saddam Hussein.

It has seen some of the bloodiest attacks on Shiites by Sunni Islamist insurgents; in February, 125 people were killed by a suicide car bomb in Hilla. Nearly 100 died in July in the nearby town of Mussayyib.

For the most extreme followers of the Sunni branch of Islam, Shi'ites are apostates who have abandoned the true religion.

The schism dates back to a conflict among the first followers of the Prophet Mohammad.

It divides non-Arab Iran from the bulk of the Arab world, and the emergence of a Shiite-majority government in Iraq following the US invasion of 2003 that toppled Saddam has also opened up a rift between Baghdad and other Arab states.

A row erupted this week between Iraq and Saudi Arabia, home of Islam's holiest sites; Iraq's Shiite interior minister responded to Saudi comments about Iranian influence in Baghdad by saying he would not take advice from a "bedouin riding a camel".

- REUTERS