The violence was part of a surge of attacks that have caused heavy casualties in recent weeks, ending a relative lull since Iraqis voted in historic Jan. 30 elections. Iraqi leaders are struggling to form a Cabinet that will include members of the Sunni minority, believed to be the driving force in the insurgency.
Al-Jazeera aired part of a hostage video yesterday in which it said a militant group was threatening to kill three kidnapped Romanian journalists and their Iraqi-American translator unless Romanian troops leave Iraq within four days. Journalists Marie Jeanne Ion, Sorin Dumitru Miscoci, and Ovidiu Ohanesian were kidnapped with their translator, Mohammed Monaf, on March 28 near their Baghdad hotel.
One US soldier was killed yesterday by a roadside bomb north of Tal Afar, 95 miles east of the Syrian border, the military said. On Thursday, a US Marine died in a nonhostile incident at Camp Delta, near Karmah, 50 miles west of Baghdad, the military said. More than 1,500 members of the US military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war two years ago.
The car bomb exploded at Al-Subeih mosque, in the capital's Shi'ite-dominated New Baghdad neighborhood, said police Colonel Ahmed Aboud. Witnesses said the vehicle used in the attack had been parked outside the building since the morning.
A 10-year-old child was among the eight people killed, and the 26 wounded included two 9-year-olds, hospital officials said.
Remains were strewn at the scene among shattered glass and piles of bricks.
''This is a cowardly and savage act that aims to create conflict among Iraqis," said Abdelallah Faraj, a grocer who survived the attack.
Shi'ite mosques and funerals have become a frequent target of Sunni-led insurgents. In February, suicide bombers attacked a number of them during the Shi'ite commemoration of Ashoura, killing nearly 100 people. In recent weeks, police have pulled dozens of bodies from the Tigris River in a region south of Baghdad that has seen retaliatory kidnappings and killings by Shi'ite and Sunni groups.
