WAR: Mortar Attack Kills 27 at Kufa Mosque

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KUFA, Iraq - A mortar barrage hit the main mosque in the Iraqi city of Kufa on Thursday, killing 27 people and wounding 63 others as they prepared to march on the violence-wracked city of Najaf, hospital officials and witnesses said.

Thousands of people were crowded around the mosque at the time and dead bodies lay around the mosque compound, which is a stronghold of followers of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, witnesses said.

Hussam al-Husseini, an al-Sadr aide, said one mortar shell hit the mosque compound itself and two others hit near the mosque gates. Others gave conflicting accounts of the number of explosions.

Mohammed AbdelKhadum, an official at al-Furat al-Awsat hospital in Kufa, said 27 people were killed and 63 injured. The morgue overflowed with bodies, and more than a dozen corpses had to be stored in the hospital's garden.

Later, gunmen opened fire on thousands of Shiite marchers heading from Kufa to the twin city of Najaf, killing at least one, witnesses said. The gunfire came from a base between the two cities housing Iraqi national guardsmen and U.S. troops, witnesses said. An Associated Press reporter on the scene saw at least one body.

It was unclear who fired the mortars. U.S. forces have battled Shiite insurgents loyal to al-Sadr in neighboring Najaf and sporadically in Kufa for three weeks. Each side blamed the other for Thursday's mortar barrage.



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