.jpg) |
Baghdad (AsiaNews/Agencies) – A suicide bomber blew himself up at a Sunni mosque in Jalowla, near the Iraq-Iran border, killing two people. This is unusual because Shiite mosques are usually targeted.
Local police, who identified the suicide bomber, said the man might have been inside the mosque preparing for an attack when the explosives detonated prematurely. Two of his brothers were arrested.
The blast came at a time of growing sectarian tensions between Shiite and Sunni Arabs.
Jordanian terrorist al-Zarqawi has added fuel to the flames claiming that Shiites are “allies of the West and must therefore be killed”.
Tensions are likely to go even higher after the tragic death of ten young Sunni men when they were left inside a police van to suffocate under the sun. They had been arrested on Sunday in one of Baghdad’s Shiite neighbourhoods.
Local authorities promised to investigate the incident, especially to avoid Sunni reprisals.
Currently, interethnic and religious relations are at the heart of the debate over Iraq’s new constitution.
Sunni leaders had pushed their community to boycott the first post-Saddam elections to express their opposition to the Shiites and the Western presence.
The Allawi government eventually chose to give Sunnis the possibility to take part in the process of constitutional reform. Now the task has fallen on the current Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari.
The next deadline in the constitutional process is August 15 when Iraq’s draft constitution will be presented. A national referendum is scheduled for October 15.
If approved within the expected timeframe, new general elections will be held on December 15 and a new government sworn in no later than December 31, 2005.
If the constitution fails the popular test, a new constituent assembly will have to be elected before December 15 to draft another Charter.
