IRAQ: Iraqis dug among rubble strewn with body parts for survivors of the Najaf car-bomb. Angry Shias vowed to avenge the killing of Ayatollah Mohammed Baqer al-Hakim and other worshippers as they were leaving the Imam Ali mosque.
"I was inside the mosque praying and suddenly there was a huge explosion," said Amuri Faleh. "I came out to the street and found dead bodies and arms and legs scattered all over the place." Eyewitnesses said Hakim was about to drive away when the blast went off, destroying his car. Three gutted and destroyed cars, two of them flipped over by the force of the blast, were strewn across the street beside the mosque.
Volunteer rescuers screaming "God is Great" pulled a severed foot from the rubble and dug frantically around a deep bomb crater filled with twisted metal and stinking black water. "The world is going to be turned upside down after this. This is our holiest site," said Qusay Jaber outside the mosque. "If the Americans don't secure our sites anything is possible. We will stage an uprising."
The Imam Ali mosque holds the tomb of Ali, a son-in-law and cousin of the Prophet Mohammed, and is the most sacred Shia site in Islam. It suffered some damage in the blast.
Shias at the scene blamed fighters loyal to Saddam Hussein for the attack.
"This was Saddam. Why haven't the Americans got rid of him? They have to help us," one said.