Blast at Shia shrine kills 78

Gunfire erupted shortly after the blast, which a policeman said went off near Khillani mosque in the commercial area of Sinak. Police and hospital officials said at least 78 people were killed and 218 were wounded, adding that the toll could rise as bodies were pulled from the debris.

The mosque’s imam, Sheik Saleh al-Haidari, said it was a truck bomb and the explosion hit worshippers as they were leaving afternoon prayers. “This attack was planned and carried out by sick souls, damaging the mosque’s outer wall and collapsing my office and the room above it,” said al-Haidari by telephone.

On Sunday, officials had lifted a curfew aimed at preventing retaliatory violence after last week’s bombing of a Shiite mosque in Samarra.

The same day, about 10,000 US soldiers used heavily armoured Stryker and Bradley fighting vehicles to battle their way into an al-Qaeda sanctuary, north-east of the capital. The troops, under cover of attack helicopters, killed at least 22 insurgents in the offensive, the US military said.

The raids, dubbed “Operation Arrowhead Ripper,” took place in Baqouba, the capital of Diyala province, and involved air assaults under the cover of darkness, the military said. The operation was still in its opening stages, it said. The commander of Iraqi military operations in Diyala, Maj Gen Abdul-Karim al-Rubaie, said handcuffs, swords and electricity cables-apparently used as torture implements-had been seized from militant safe houses in the area.