Suicide bomber kills 11 in Iraq mosque

An Iraqi soldier looks at destruction inside Baratha Shiite mosque in Baghdad yesterday after a suicide bomber blew himself up killing at least 11people.The attack came despite a massive clampdown in the capital ordered by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki that saw vehicles banned from the capital's streets during Friday prayer time and tens of thousands of Iraqi and US soldiers out on patrol. PHOTO: AFP

The blast, which also wounded 25 people, came just an hour before the main weekly Muslim prayers, when the Baratha mosque would have been filled with thousands of worshippers.

On April 7, a triple suicide bombing by men dressed as women targeted worshippers just as they were leaving the same mosque, killing 90 and wounding 175.

Friday's blast came despite a security crackdown that saw vehicles banned from the capital's streets during prayer time and tens of thousands of Iraqi and US soldiers out on patrol.

Two people were also killed and 16 wounded when four mortar rounds struck a house and a shop in Baghdad's Sab al-Bur neighbourhood.

Gunmen in two trucks stormed two villages in the early hours Friday and killed three people and kidnapped nine others, police said.

The two villages are located near the town of Suwayrah, 50 kilometers south of Baghdad.

In another incident, one person was killed and another kidnapped when men dressed in Iraqi army uniforms attacked a house in Al-Jahar village near the town of Madain, 25 kilometers south of baghdad.

"The gunmen stormed the house, dragged the two men out and killed one of them in front of the house and took away the other," a police officer said.

An Iraqi army soldier was also shot dead by gunmen in the northern town of Hawija, while an employee of the Northern Gas Company was similary shot dead near the oil city of Kirkuk, police said.

On Thursday night, a woman and her four children were killed in Baquba when a bomb went off in a neighbor's house bringing the ceiling down on the family sleeping in the garden, police said.

US military said on Friday it had started an investigation into the deaths last month of three men in the custody of US-led forces in Iraq. Lieutenant General Peter Chiarelli, the number two US commander in Iraq, ordered the investigation of the deaths which occurred on or around May 9 in Salahaddin province.

"The request for an investigation is the result of soldiers' reported suspicions about the deaths," said the statement.

The investigation is taking place amid another probe of allegations that U.S. Marines killed up to 24 unarmed civilians in the town of Haditha last year.