BAGHDAD, Feb 18 (AFP) - A spate of attacks on Shiite targets in Baghdad killed at least 21 people Friday, just one day after the majority community was officially confirmed as the new power in Iraq for the first time in history.
The blasts occurred within two hours of each other as worshippers marked the first of two days of mourning in the Shiite ceremony of Ashura, bringing back grim memories of the bloodbath that marred last year's commemoration.
The deadliest blast occurred at a Shiite mosque in southern Baghdad, killing 17 people, police and medics said.
"The attack was carried out by a suicide bomber wearing an explosives belt at the Kazimain mosque in Abu Dishr near Dura," a police officer said.
"I had just begun Friday prayers when an enormous explosion rocked the building," said the Dura mosque's imam, Sheikh Malek Kinani, who was also at the hospital.
Three other Iraqis, including a child, were killed and five wounded, when a mortar shell ripped through a cafe in the Baghdad neighbourhood of Shula, medical sources said.
Half an hour earlier, twin suicide bombers killed at least one person at another Shiite mosque in western Baghdad, a source at Yarmuk hospital said.
At least 42 people were wounded in the attacks.
Shiites were marking Tasua, the first of two days of mourning for the revered Imam Hussein which will culminate on Saturday with the religious festival of Ashura.
Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Mohammed and the third Imam in Shiite Islam, was killed in 680 AD during the battle of Karbala.
During Ashura ceremonies last year, bombings in the holy Shiite city of Karbala and in Baghdad killed more than 170 people, attacks which remain the deadliest since Saddam Hussein was toppled by US-led forces in April 2003.
There was no immediate claim for the attacks but the Sunni-dominated insurgency had vowed to target the Shiites who emerged as winners in Iraq's first democratic election in decades on January 30 and whose results were confirmed on Thursday.
In other violence, security sources said 12 Iraqis and a US soldier have died in insurgent violence since Thursday evening, while two Indonesian journalists were missing and feared kidnapped while travelling on a notoriously dangerous road from Jordan to Baghdad.
The violence flared after clergy-backed Shiite list was confirmed to have won a slim majority in the 275-seat National Assembly which will draw up a constitution for a post-Saddam Iraq.
The United Iraqi Alliance, blessed by the Shiite spiritual leader Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, won 140 seats in the parliament followed by 75 for the Kurdish parties and 40 for interim prime minister Iyad Allawi's list.
Horse-trading for the top jobs has already started but little appears yet to have been decided and choosing a presidential council and a new cabinet could take days if not weeks of wrangling.
The Shiite list's political opponents have cautioned the next executive against imposing a conservative brand of Islam similar to that prevailing in Iran, with whom several Shiite premier hopefuls have close ties.
The winning Shiite list will dominate parliament but fell short of the two-thirds majority needed for most crucial decisions and will likely seek alliances with the Kurds.
Winning parties have promised to include Sunnis in the constitution-drafting to avoid their being marginalised for the long-term and their grievances helping boost grassroots support for the insurgency.
In Baghdad, thousands of Shiites put on a show of force at a gathering in Baghdad to mark the start of the Ashura mourning period, while security was strengthened in the main Shiite shrine cities of Karbal and Najaf.
Sayyed Abdelaziz Hakim, the black-turbaned cleric who heads the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), the main party in the Shiite list, addressed thousands of supporters before Friday prayers, at a gathering unthinkable two years ago.
He accused the police of having tortured to death three members of his party's officially disbanded militia, the Badr organisation.
Two Indonesian journalists were feared kidnapped by insurgents in western Iraq on Friday, disappearing from the notoriously dangerous road linking the Jordan and Iraqi capitals.
"The two journalists, who work for an Indonesian television station, were coming to Baghdad by road and disappeared in the region of Ramadi," a rebel hotspot west of the capital, said a security source at the embassy.
Scores of people have been kidnapped in the insurgency against US-led and Iraqi forces and those who help or support them. Around 30 captives have been slain by their captors, some by beheading.
On Thursday, Arab news networks broadcast a tape showing Minas Ibrahim al-Yussufi, an Iraqi Christian politician holding Swedish nationality and kidnapped three weeks ago, calling on the king of Sweden and the pope to work for his release. His captors have threatened to behead him if a ransom was not paid.
On Wednesday, Italian reporter Giuliana Sgrena appeared on a recording demanding that her government, one of Washington's staunchest allies during the invasion of Iraq, withdraw its troops.
In Washington, newly released documents revealed further allegations of abuse of Iraqi detainees at the hands of US forces.
02/18/2005 13:02 GMT - AFP