Religious strife flares in Baghdad

Thousands of Sunnis gathered Wednesday in Baghdad to mark the deaths of 3 people killed Tuesday by a blast at a mosque. Some blamed Shiite militias for the attack.

By Nicholas Blanford | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

BAGHDAD – The Sunni and Shiite residents of western Baghdad's Hurriyeh neighborhood have lived in harmony for years. Their families intermarry. They attend each other's weddings and funerals and pray in each other's mosques. It is a calm area too, with not a single attack reported against the coalition forces since April.

That coexistence, however, came to an abrupt end early Tuesday morning. An explosion beside a Sunni mosque killed three people and ripped the fabric of communal unity that bound Shiites and Sunnis, exposing the deep-rooted sectarian divisions within Iraqi society.

The Sunnis blame the explosion on militant Shiites belonging to the Al Dawa party and the Badr Brigades, the military wing of the Iran-backed Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). The Shiites accuse Sunnis from the extremist Wahhabi sect of stirring up tensions between the two communities.

As the three victims were buried Wednesday, armed Sunni and Shiite gunmen took to the streets vowing revenge, while clerics pleaded for calm. Grim-faced American troops, backed by Apache helicopter gunships, patrolled the neighborhood.

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