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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Iraqi clerics urge end to sectarian killing


A woman crosses a deserted street Friday just before the prayer-day vehicle ban in Baghdad.
 (Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)
Jeffrey Fleishman Los Angeles Times

BAGHDAD, Iraq – A day after a suicide bomber killed 35 people at a revered Shiite shrine, clerics across Iraq on Friday called for an end to the sectarian killing that one imam described as “waking every day to the view of blood.”

The bombing near the Imam Ali mosque in Najaf on Thursday ignited fresh sectarian passions that lingered over sermons in Shiite and Sunni mosques. Some Muslim clerics wondered if Iraq has slipped too far, becoming a nation where the sounds of weeping mothers and praying imams are lost in the din of kidnappings, explosions and slaughter.

“We lost all our feelings. We are saying goodbye to our sons every day,” said Khaled Hassnawi, a Sunni imam, at the Sheik Abdul Kadir mosque in Baghdad.

Speaking at the largest Shiite mosque here, Imam Sayed Nail Musawi said: “These adversities that you are seeing every day is like training for us. God is testing our patience … The incident in Najaf, who was killed? Poor people in the market. More than 30 were martyred. Najaf’s sacredness was violated by this attack.”

But even on a day of prayer, violence continued across the country. The bodies of six blindfolded and tortured men were found west and east of Baghdad. A roadside bomb near the northern city of Kirkuk exploded near an Iraqi police convoy, killing two policemen and injuring three.

Also, gunmen in southern Iraq ransacked two offices belonging to President Jalal Talabani’s political party.