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An Attack on a Mosque

Bombs shattered a sacred shrine in Iraq last week. The attack sparked a chain of violence that left more than 120 people dead by Friday and heightened tensions between Sunnis and Shiites, the two main groups of Iraqi Muslims.

The Askariya shrine is located in Samarra, a mostly Sunni city 60 miles north of Baghdad. Known as the Golden Mosque, the shrine has been a Shiite place of worship for 1,200 years. The mosque is one of the most important Shiite shrines in the world.

It was not im-mediately clear who attacked the shrine, but many Shiites assumed that Sunnis were to blame. Angry Shiites flooded the streets in Samarra. Thousands of demon-strators marched in Baghdad and throughout the country. Dozens of Shiite attacks against Sunni mosques were reported.

President George W. Bush called the bombing "an evil act" and said that the U.S. was commit-ted to helping rebuild the mosque. He urged Iraqis to resist violence.

Many fear that the violence is a setback to efforts to promote peace and stability in Iraq. There is worry that the unrest could lead to civil war. Shiites and Sunnis had been working together to create a government that would represent both groups' needs. Now, angry Sunni leaders refuse to participate in talks.

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