BAGHDAD, 10 January 2004 — A bicycle bomb killed six people as they ended Friday prayers at a crowded Shiite mosque in Baqubah, central Iraq, underscoring the threat of religious conflict in a country already racked by an anti-American insurgency.
Iraqi police later defused a car bomb outside another Shiite mosque in the same town, north of Baghdad.
The first device, a gas cylinder packed with explosives strapped to a bicycle, went off close to people praying on the pavement due to lack of space inside the small Shiite mosque. “At the end of prayers, it exploded,” Iraqi police Sgt. Haki Ismail Mustafa told reporters. Officials at a nearby hospital said at least 39 people were injured.
Meanwhile, the United States said yesterday it had formally declared Saddam an enemy prisoner of war under the Geneva Convention.
“The bottom line is that Saddam Hussein was the leader of the old regime’s military forces, and therefore he was a member of the military, and he was captured. That makes him an enemy prisoner of war,” said Pentagon spokesman Maj. Michael Shavers.
A US military spokesman said the car bomb outside another Shiite mosque in Baqubah could have caused many more deaths.
“The Iraqi police came upon the car as a routine check of the area,” Capt. Josh Felker said. “They found 125 kilos (275 pounds) of TNT, four 155mm artillery shells and a remote detonation device.”
Baqubah, 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad, is in a largely Sunni Muslim area and is a hotbed of opposition to the US-led occupation. US forces have mounted major operations in and around the town to capture insurgents and quell resistance.
A car bomb attack after Friday prayers in the Shiite holy city of Najaf in August killed more than 80 people, including one of the most senior leaders.
In Saddam’s hometown Tikrit, hundreds of US troops stormed houses overnight in the hope of capturing insurgents.
About 300 soldiers from the 4th Infantry Division backed by Bradley armored vehicles and military aircraft searched for suspects, weapons and other incriminating material in one of the biggest raids conducted by US forces in recent weeks.
US officials said they were still investigating the cause of Thursday’s helicopter crash which killed all nine US troops on board near the town of Fallujah, 50 km (30 miles) west of Baghdad and the scene of incessant anti-American attacks.
A witness said the helicopter was in flames before it went down and some reports said it could have been hit by a rocket.
The deaths raise to almost 500 the number of US soldiers killed in combat or accidents since the invasion last March.
A US military transport plane carrying 63 passengers and crew was hit by ground fire shortly after takeoff from Baghdad on Thursday but managed to return and land safely. The latest attacks follow a lull in violence following last month’s capture of Saddam. Spain’s defense minister has said Saddam had been directing insurgents before his capture.
A senior British official said Saddam was keeping his mouth shut, but documents found with him had provided good intelligence. “The results of the capture of Saddam were greater than we were ever expecting”, the official said. In a further boost for the US-led coalition, Italy’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to keep its 2,000-strong force in Iraq for a further six months, until June, despite the deaths of 19 Italians in car bomb attack on their base in November.
And Japan’s defense chief ordered an advance team of ground troops to leave for Iraq, as the military readied for a humanitarian operation that will be Japan’s biggest and most controversial overseas deployment since World War II.
— Additional input from agencies
