A gas cylinder filled with explosives and strapped to a bicycle blew up outside a Shi'ite mosque in central Iraq today, killing at least six people and injuring dozens.
Devotees were exchanging handshakes after prayers in the town of Baquba when the bomb went off, mainly hitting those who had been praying outside because the mosque was full. The bicycle had been parked in the centre of the street outside, witnesses and police said. Six people died and 37 people were injured.
A badly burned taxi was at the gates of the mosque and windows of nearby shops were shattered. The mosque itself escaped damage except for some scratches from shrapnel.
US military officials on the scene said they were investigating.
Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad, is in a largely Sunni Muslim area which is a hotbed of resistance to the occupation of Iraq. US forces have mounted major operations in and around the town to try to capture insurgents.
A car bomb outside the main mosque in the Shi'ite holy city of Najaf last August killed more than 80 people after Friday prayers, including a senior Shi'ite cleric. An explosion near a mosque in the mainly Sunni town of Falluja in June killed nine people.
Shi'ites make up about 60 per cent of Iraq's 26 million people but were largely excluded from power under the rule of Saddam Hussein, a Sunni. There has been tension between the two communities as they jockey for power in the post-Saddam era.