Sunni-Shi’ite Jihad Update from AP:
BAGHDAD, Iraq – A suicide car bomber detonated explosives in a crowd of laborers gathered across the street from a major Shiite shrine in southern Iraq Tuesday, killing at least 53 people and wounding 105, officials and witnesses said.
The attacker drove a minivan to where Shiite laborers gather daily to look for work in Kufa, 100 miles south of Baghdad. He offered them jobs, loaded the minivan with volunteers and then detonated the vehicle, Najaf Gov. Asaad Abu Kalal told a Shiite
television station.
The blast occurred about 7:30 a.m. across the street from Kufa’s gold-domed mosque, police Capt. Nafie Mohammed said. The shrine, located in a congested area of the city, marks the place where Imam Ali, cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad, was
mortally wounded.
[…]
Kufa is a stronghold of radical anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose movement controls the mosque. It appeared the blast was aimed at undermining al-Sadr’s position in Iraq’s sectarian struggle, much of which has been blamed on al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia.