Turning the corner

Worshippers Blown Up in Iraq Blast

An explosion ripped through a busy Iraqi street today as worshippers were streaming out of a Shiite Muslim mosque after midday prayers, killing up to five people and wounding dozens

Wailing women tried to cover body parts, wounded people wandered in a daze and a man screamed his anguish as he knelt before two bodies.

An Iraqi police lieutenant and the owner of the Sadiq Mohamed mosque in Baqouba both said the blast was caused by a gas cylinder.

But businessman Raad Sadek, who built and owns the mosque, said his brother saw the cylinder leaning against the door of the mosque and, after becoming suspicious, moved it to the middle of the street, where there was a large crater.

A police investigator said officers defused a car bomb in front of another Shiite mosque less than two miles away, and that it appeared a coordinated attack.

He said the car was rigged with three artillery shells and 330 pounds of TNT wired with a complex remote-controlled trigger. He said faulty wiring prevented the bomb from going off.