A truck bomb on Tuesday struck a Shiite mosque in central Baghdad, killing 78 people and wounding more than 200. The thunderous explosion at the Khillani mosque in the capital’s commercial area of Sinak sent smoke billowing over concrete buildings. A police officer said the car that exploded was parked in a lot near the mosque and it damaged the outer wall of the building. AP Television News video showed a huge pile of rubble where the wall used to be, but its turquoise dome was intact.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.
