Fifteen people were killed and scores wounded in a car bomb attack on a Shiite mosque in Baghdad as they celebrated a major Muslim holiday, after Al-Qaeda's frontman in Iraq threatened to fan the flames of civil war.

Kidnappers holding eight Chinese nationals vowed to show "mercy" if Beijing banned its nationals from Iraq, while an Italian soldier was killed when his helicopter came under fire in southern Iraq.

Hospital officials said 15 people were killed -- two of them children -- and 39 wounded when a car bomb ripped through a crowd of worshippers pouring out of the Shuhada al-Taf Shiite mosque after special prayers for the Eid al-Adha feast.

The shrapnel and debris cut children who had gathered around as Shiite Dawa party volunteers gave away candies, cake and watches to celebrate the holiday, the most sacred on the Muslim calendar, said mosque caretaker Mahmud Mohammed.

"The people were leaving the mosque when someone sped up in a car and rammed a minibus which was parked there in front of the mosque," he told an AFP reporter on the scene.

Children's shoes, sandals and an abaya -- the traditional black dress worn by Shiite women -- could be seen in puddles of blood in front of the mosque.

Senior Shiite political leader Abdel Aziz Hakim -- whose list is expected to dominate the elections -- said the attack was the latest salvo by extremists trying to stoke civil war between Shiites and Sunnis.

"It is quite obvious why there is such an attack. They are trying to create sectarian strife," Hakim told AFP.

The attack confirmed fears of Sunni Arab insurgents escalating their campaign against Shiites, who are expected to carry the January 30 general elections largely being boycotted by the Sunnis.

An audiotape released Thursday and purportedly recorded by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Al-Qaeda's supremo in Iraq, took aim at the Shiite community, accusing it of participating in the deadly November assault on Fallujah.

"The battle of Fallujah removed the ugly mask of the damned 'Rafidha' (a derogatory term for Shiites), whose hatred (for Sunnis) was manifested in this battle," Zarqawi said.

"They participated in the military campaign for the battle against Fallujah with the blessing of the imam of infidelity and apostasy, Sistani," he added.

Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani is Iraq's most senior Shiite cleric and possibly the most influential man in the country. He is backing a political coalition that is expected to win the milestone January 30 vote.

At the scene of the bombing, a man who lost two of his cousins in the blast vowed he would not be deterred by the attack and would vote on election day despite the soaring anti-Shiite violence.

"The elections will go ahead regardless and we have to vote in spite of all those sacrifices. The people have to seize this opportunity because voting is the only viable way of ending the occupation," Qasem Jabbar told AFP.

But Zarqawi's group and other extremist Sunni Arabs have vowed to disrupt the elections. They are waging a fierce campaign of intimidation against the population, electoral workers and the security services.

On Friday, six Iraqi soldiers were killed in a string of incidents in the Sunni heartland north of Baghdad, security sources said.

The fledgling Iraqi security services will be facing their most serious challenge to date, as US troops -- keen not to be seen as too closely involved in the electoral process -- will let them take the lead in securing polling stations.

Further fueling fears on an insurgent onslaught on Shiite areas, the Iraqi army said it discovered rockets it suspected were meant to be fired on election day.

A US soldier was also killed early Friday in a raid against a bomb-making cell in Duluiyah, a restive Sunni bastion north of Baghdad, a statement said.

One insurgent was killed in the operation and 12 arrested.

Three Iraqi civilians working as contractors with the US military were also killed Friday in an ambush in northern Iraq, police said.

But violence also spread to the usually quiet south. An Italian soldier was killed when his helicopter came under fire, the Italian ANSA news agency quoted military officials as saying.

The rare Italian casualty came a day after a car bomb at the entrance of British base near the southern city of Basra left one Iraqi civilian dead and nine British troops wounded.

Meanwhile, the lives of eight abducted Chinese hung in limbo, after a 48-hour deadline for Beijing to "clarify" its position in Iraq expired Thursday.

A new purported video released by Dubai-based satellite television channel Al-Arabiya, the kidnappers who threatened to kill them said they would show "mercy" toward them if Beijing banned its citizens from going to Iraq.

Beijing opposed the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 but, like other nations, its companies have chased lucrative reconstruction contracts in the war-ravaged country.

Copyright © 2005AFP

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