Baghdad: Three suicide bombers dressed as women killed at least 70 people at a Shia mosque on Friday, highlighting the inability of Iraqi leaders to tackle sectarian violence as they struggle to form a government.
A police official said the bombers were dressed in traditional Shia women's black robes when they struck, two inside the mosque and one just outside.
Some police sources said all the bombers were women; others said they were one woman and two men dressed as women.
The bombing, the biggest single suicide attack on a Shia target since November 2005, also wounded 158 people.
Men screamed as bodies of victims were taken on wooden carts to ambulances at the complex, which belongs to SCIRI, the most powerful group inside Iraq's ruling Shia Alliance.
"The Shias are the target and it's a sectarian act. There is nothing to justify this act but black sectarian hatred," said SCIRI leader Jalal al-Deen, who was at the mosque during the explosions. He said he had counted 65 bodies.
He accused some Sunni newspapers of inciting violence by publishing reports that the mosque contained a detention centre where Sunnis were abused.
People picked up pieces of flesh and placed them on trays. "This is a cowardly act. Every time I see these bloody scenes, it tears apart my heart," said fireman Jawwad Kathim, holding a severed finger.
The attack came a day after a car bomb exploded near a Shia shrine in the sacred southern city of Najaf, killing at least 13 people.
Sectarian tensions have been running high since the bombing of a Shia shrine on February 22 touched off reprisals and pushed Iraq to the brink of a sectarian civil war.
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