Suicide car bombers struck Iraq’s two main Shi’ite holy cities of Najaf and Kerbala on Sunday, killing at least 62 people and wounding nearly 130, in coordinated attacks six weeks before a historic election. It was the highest bombing death toll in Iraq since July and by far the bloodiest attack since last month’s US assault on the Sunni city of Falluja, which aimed to quell the insurgency.

Both bombs, which went off about two hours apart, exploded near crowded bus stations in an apparently coordinated attempt to cause as much bloodshed as possible among Shi’ites, a long-oppressed majority expected to dominate the Jan. 30 vote. Earlier in Baghdad, gunmen killed three Electoral Commission employees after hauling them from a car on a busy street. The blasts were not far from important Shi’ite shrines – the Imam Ali mosque in Najaf and Imam Hussein mosque in Kerbala.

The attacks appeared designed to provoke sectarian conflict with Saddam Hussein’s long-dominant Sunni minority. Shi’ite leaders called on their people not to reply in kind. In Najaf, the suicide bomber detonated his vehicle about 300 yards (metres) from the Imam Ali shrine, near crowds of people queuing for buses and taxis and not far from busy offices.

Medical officials said at least 48 were killed and 90 wounded in the blast, which left stunned crowds waiting in freezing temperatures for ambulances. A thick column of smoke rose from the blast site as a rare drizzling rain fell. Police imposed a curfew in Najaf’s old city. In Kerbala, where a suicide bomber struck about two hours earlier, the main hospital said 14 people were killed and 39 wounded. A hospital official said all appeared to be civilians with many women and children among them.

Previous attacks

A Reuters cameraman said the ground around the bus station was littered with dead and wounded. Flames licked at burnt-out vehicles nearly an hour afterwards. The explosion left a deep crater and blew out windows and shop fronts, showering the area with broken glass.

The Kerbala attack was the second in five days. On Wednesday, a bomb apparently targeting Shi’ite cleric Abdul Mehdi al-Kerbalai exploded as he was returning to his office after evening prayers at the Imam Hussein shrine. Sunday’s bomb was just a few hundred yards away. Twelve people were killed and 30 wounded in Wednesday’s attack, including the cleric, who is regarded as close to Iraq’s supreme Shi’ite authority, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. Sistani, who lives in Najaf, has overseen the creation of a powerful Shi’ite coalition to stand in the election, a bloc of candidates widely expected to emerge victorious.

Many militant Sunnis, waging an insurgency against American occupation, fear domination by the Shi’ite majority who make up 60 percent of the population but have never held power. There have been concerns about attempts to aggravate religious divisions since March, when suicide bombers struck Baghdad and Kerbala during an annual Shi’ite mourning rite, killing more than 170 people, an act blamed on Sunni militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian allied to al Qaeda.

Election officials killed

Shi’ite religious reject accusations by some secular opponents that they want an Iranian-style Shi’ite theocracy. “They are trying to ignite a sectarian civil war and prevent elections from going ahead on time. They have failed before and they will fail again,” said Mohammad Bahr al-Uloum, one of Iraq’s most respected Shi’ite clerics. “The Shi’ites are committed not to respond with violence, which will only lead to violence.”

Saddam appealed to Iraqis from his prison cell to unite against what he called US efforts to sow sectarian divisions, his lawyers said in Amman on Sunday. Ziad Kha- sawneh, spokesman for the defence team, told reporters: “President Saddam Hussein urged the unity of his Iraqi people, regardless of their religious and ethnic creed, to confront US plans to divide their country on sectarian grounds.”

As well as attempts to drive a wedge between religious sects that have historically co-existed fairly peacefully, insurgents have tried to wreck plans for the poll. On Friday and Saturday, three election offices were attacked in the north.

In Baghdad on Sunday, gunmen dragged three junior Electoral Commission employees from a car and shot them dead in broad daylight, although it was not clear if they were targeted because of their work, a commission spokesman said. Witnesses said insurgents opened fire on the vehicle first. Two other commission employees escaped. Separately, four Kurds were killed by gunmen in Hawija, southwest of the ethnically tense oilfield city of Kirkuk.

“Shi’ite religious reject accusations by some secular opponents that they want an Iranian-style Shi’ite theocracy. “They are trying to prevent elections from going ahead on time. They have failed before and they will fail again.”

Khaled FARHAN