Bombs, mortars in Shiite slum kill at least 161

updated 9:23 p.m. ET Nov. 23, 2006

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Sunni Muslim insurgents blew up five car bombs and fired mortars into Baghdad's largest Shiite district Thursday, killing at least 161 people and wounding 257 in a dramatic attack that sent the U.S. ambassador racing to meet with Iraqi leaders in an effort to contain the growing sectarian war.

Shiite mortar teams quickly retaliated, firing 10 shells at Sunni Islam's most important shrine in Baghdad, badly damaging the Abu Hanifa mosque and killing one person. Eight more rounds slammed down near the offices of the Association of Muslim Scholars, the top Sunni Muslim organization in Iraq, setting nearby houses on fire.

Two other mortar barrages on Sunni neighborhoods in west Baghdad killed nine and wounded 21, police said late Thursday.

The bloodshed underlined the impotence of the Iraqi army and police to quell determined sectarian extremists at a time when the Bush administration appears to be considering a move to accelerate the handover of security responsibilities. President Bush plans to visit the region next week to discuss the security situation with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

"We condemn such acts of senseless violence that are clearly aimed at undermining the Iraqi people's hopes for a peaceful and stable Iraq," said Jeanie Mamo, a White House spokeswoman.

Curfew imposed, airport closed
Iraq's government imposed a curfew in the capital and also closed the international airport. The transport ministry then took the highly unusual step of closing the airport and docks in the southern city of Basra, the country's main outlet to the vital shipping lanes in the Persian Gulf.

Leaders from Iraq's Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish communities issued a televised appeal for calm after a hastily organized meeting with U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad. The U.S. Embassy said it had nothing to report about the session.

NBC VIDEO Turmoil bubbles up across Mideast Nov. 23: A step-up in violence in Iraq is also feared in the wake of an assassination of a Lebanese government minister this week and as Iraq's prime minister and President Bush prepare to meet in Jordan. NBC's Richard Engel reports. Nightly News

Al-Maliki, a Shiite, also went on state TV and blamed Sunni radicals and followers of Saddam Hussein for the attacks on Sadr City — the deadliest on a sectarian enclave since the war began.

The coordinated car bombings — three by suicide drivers and two of parked cars — billowed black smoke up into clouds hanging low over blood-smeared streets jammed with twisted and charred cars and buses.

Hospital corridors and waiting rooms were awash in blood and mangled survivors of bombs that struck at 15-minute intervals in the sprawling Shiite slum, which is a stronghold of the Mahdi Army militia of radical anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, a key al-Maliki backer.

The militia and associated death squads are believed responsible for the slayings of hundreds of Sunnis since suspected al-Qaida in Iraq militants bombed a revered Shiite shrine in the city of Samarra last February.

That attack set off a surge of retaliatory killings between Shiites and Sunnis that have raged all year.

Al-Sadr associates, speaking to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the information, said the cleric feared that the Sadr City bombings would make it impossible for him to hold back his heavily armed fighters from a furious round of revenge attacks.

In a television statement read by an aide, al-Sadr urged unity among his followers to end the U.S. "occupation" that he said is causing Iraq's strife. Al-Sadr said the attacks coincided with the seventh anniversary of the assassination of his father, Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr, a revered Shiite religious leader. The anniversary reckoning was by the Islamic calendar.

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