A suspected al-Qaeda bomber killed 78 people when he rammed a truck into a Shia mosque in Baghdad today, just hours after 10,000 US troops began an offensive against the Sunni Islamist group north of the capital.
Residents gather at the site of today's bomb attack in Baghdad, which has killed around 60 people. Reuters/Ali Jasim
The offensive around the city of Baquba in Diyala province is partly aimed at al-Qaeda car bomb networks that cause carnage in Baghdad. It is one of the biggest military operations since the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
One witness said the bomber drove his truck into the Khilani mosque in Baghdad, destroying one wall and wrecking part of the building's interior. The mosque's signature turquoise dome appeared to have suffered little damage.
Shia Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki blamed the attacks on "Saddamists and Takfiris", a term commonly used by Iraqi officials to describe al-Qaeda. "It shows (their) determination to ignite sectarian violence," Maliki said in a statement.
Police said 78 people had been killed, including at least nine women, and 224 others were wounded. Rescuers dragged bodies from the mosque while the charred remains of others could be seen in burned out minibuses around a nearby traffic circle.
It was the second worst bombing in Baghdad since US and Iraqi forces launched a crackdown in February in the capital aimed at halting Iraq's spiral into all-out sectarian civil war. A car bomb on April 18 killed 140 near a Baghdad market.
"Iraqis in this country are being killed every day. No one takes care of them," shouted one old man at the scene.
Iraqi military spokesman Brigadier-General Qassim Moussawi said the truck had been loaded with gas canisters and half a tonne of explosives.
The explosion followed a relatively quiet period in Baghdad after a four-day curfew was imposed last week in the wake of an attack on a revered Shia shrine in the city of Samarra that was also blamed on al-Qaeda.
Militants also fired a barrage of mortar bombs at Baghdad's Green Zone in one of the heaviest attacks in weeks on the compound that houses the US embassy and government offices.
The US embassy said no US citizens were killed or wounded in the attack just before sundown. There was no other information about possible casualties.