The day civil war erupted in Iraq

The town is quiet, its residents asleep. A minute after midnight, the on-duty officer at a small U.S. base in the middle of Samarra starts his log. A solitary ambulance carries a sick child through the cold February night. Then, at 6:43 a.m., Army Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Gallas notes the sound of two explosions. Four minutes later: “Nighthawk elements report Main Dome on the Golden Mosque has been blown up.”

Gallas does not know it yet, but the attack he has just recorded will reverberate throughout Iraq and the rest of the world.

The twin explosions last February claimed no lives. But because of the attack -- the destruction of a Shiite Muslim shrine in a Sunni Arab city -- thousands have died as Iraqis have engaged in a frenzy of vengeance, torching mosques and publicly executing civilians.

This was the dawn of Iraq’s civil war.

On Monday, the anniversary of the bombing according to the Muslim lunar calendar, officials in Baghdad called for 15 minutes to remember the destruction of the shrine. Instead, bombs shattered two Baghdad markets frequented by Shiite residents, boosting the war’s death toll by at least 87.

*

No containing the rage

For almost three years after the U.S.-led invasion, Shiites endured bombings and assassinations by Sunni insurgents. They buried thousands of their dead with limited retaliation. Their preeminent cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, preached restraint.

But Feb. 22, 2006, was the day Shiites stopped listening.

The desecration of one of their holiest sites in Iraq was almost unfathomable. Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdul Mehdi, a Shiite, compared its emotional resonance to the effect the Sept. 11 attacks had on Americans.

Top U.S. officials described the bombing as a “crime against humanity.”

The government quickly imposed a nationwide curfew. Iraqi and U.S. troops were sent into the streets, mostly to protect Sunnis from retaliation.

But the rage would not be contained.

*

A call goes out

At daybreak, an Iraqi interpreter for the Americans is one of the first people to reach the shrine.

Fuad, nicknamed “Tiger,” has a Shiite mother and a Sunni father. He is agnostic. But this morning, seeing the Golden Mosque reduced to gray rubble, Fuad cries. Next to him, Sunni police from Samarra and Shiite forces from Baghdad are weeping. Although Samarra is a mostly Sunni city, the shrine is a source of pride for both sects.

The explosions bring sleepy Iraqis into Samarra’s narrow streets. Looking toward the familiar landmark, they see its luminous shell shattered.

A call goes out from the mosque loudspeakers: Jews have done this, Americans are responsible.

By 8:10 a.m., a large group has gathered at the market near the mosque. As the crowd builds, protesters throw rocks at Iraqi commandos searching the area and there is sporadic gunfire. Some of the men simply hold up Korans, repeatedly chanting Allahu akbar -- God is great.

Before long, the mob pushes toward the U.S. base. At the gates, troops prepare to defend the compound, pointing heavy weapons at the Muslim men marching toward them.

Despite the call from the loudspeakers, the standoff doesn’t last long. The crowd dissipates.

This is no longer about the Americans.

*

The killing begins

In Sadr City, a vast poor neighborhood in east Baghdad, Shiite militiamen pick up AK-47s and grenade launchers and begin marching north toward the Sunni heartland.

Elsewhere, killers already are on the prowl.

Khalil Duleimi, a Sunni cleric, is among the first to be slain. He dies on the doorstep of his mosque in east Baghdad, killed in a drive-by shooting. In the Shiite-dominated southern city of Basra, a mob pulls a dozen Sunnis from a prison and executes them.

More than 12 hours after the twin explosions, Gallas logs another incident in Samarra. At 7:10 p.m., north of an American checkpoint, a TV crew is kidnapped. Atwar Bahjat, child of a Shiite mother and Sunni father and one of the Middle East’s most respected correspondents, has traveled to her hometown to report on the bombing. Gunmen hunt her down, killing her and her crew.

Dozens of others are slain that first day, hundreds in the days to follow.

*

Member of the family

The schism between Shiites and Sunnis dates to the 7th century and a dispute over the prophet Muhammad’s rightful heir. Two hundred years later, a Sunni caliph worried about a possible Shiite insurrection brought two direct Shiite descendants of the prophet, Ali Hadi and Hasan Askari, to Samarra, where they died under house arrest, possibly poisoned by the caliph. The shrine contains their tombs.

During the waning days of the Ottoman Empire, laborers built the golden dome above the shrine, completing it in 1905. For the next 100 years, the setting sun’s rays were reflected by the gilded canopy.

The city’s inhabitants looked upon the shrine as a member of the family, a godfather; they saluted it as they walked by. Children called out Salaam aleikum -- Peace be with you -- to its golden top.

*

‘Police, police!’

Bringing down the dome required cruelty, a well-laid plan and lots of explosives. A wall 3 feet thick and 9 feet high surrounded the shrine. The gates were locked every afternoon at 5. Nine security guards hired by the Sunni authorities who dominate the city patrolled the courtyard and buildings.

From a hotel across the street, a four-man police surveillance team watched over the mosque. Six other officers were on duty at a station adjoining the shrine. A battalion from Baghdad was based less than 100 yards away. A company of U.S. troops occupied a base 500 yards down the road.

According to U.S. military documents reconstructing the bombing, four gunmen entered the shrine complex at 8 p.m. on Feb. 21 through a door adjacent to an Islamic school.

The gunmen were wearing police commando uniforms and black masks. Without firing a shot, they overpowered the nine guards, tied them up and stole their money and weapons. They also took the keys to the complex. During the night, the men placed large amounts of explosives in the wall supporting the dome and under the canopy itself. Before dawn, the men slipped out, unnoticed.

Soon after, a police lieutenant in the station across the street heard someone shouting “Police, police!” From the roof of his building, the lieutenant could see the guards locked inside the compound courtyard.

Yelling, the guards explained what had happened. The guards broke down the door leading out of the courtyard while the lieutenant called for backup, believing an attack was imminent. While he was on the phone, he heard the first explosion. Six seconds later, the second blast brought down the rest of the dome.

In the confusion, the security guards fled. They were never seen again.

*

A plot is revealed

U.S. troops prepared a preliminary report. American investigators believed that at least one of the guards collaborated with the attackers, letting the four men into the compound, according to the report, which also identified three of the nine guards as known insurgents.

A few days after the bombing, Iraqis formally took charge of the investigation.

In June, Iraq’s national security advisor, Mowaffak Rubaie, told reporters that security forces had arrested a Tunisian, Fakher Mohammed Ali, after a shootout at a checkpoint north of Baghdad.

Rubaie said Ali confessed to the bombing, detailing a plot by Al Qaeda during his interrogation.

Ali told investigators that Haytham Badri, an Iraqi from a prominent Sunni tribe in Samarra, planned the attack with seven others: four Saudis, two Iraqis and himself. Badri, head of the local Al Qaeda cell, also personally killed Bahjat, the TV reporter, and her crew, Rubaie said.

Today, Ali sits on death row in Baghdad, convicted of the bombing. Badri has not been caught. Neither have his alleged co-conspirators.

According to the government, the case is solved.

*

Shrine remains a hostage

Once, a resplendent Shiite dome shone over the Sunni city of Samarra, signaling Iraq’s religious and historical heritage. Today, Iraqis project their fears and suspicions onto the rubble: Shiites believe Sunnis brought the dome down; Sunnis say the investigation was a Shiite conspiracy.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki, a Shiite, says reconstruction will be an integral part of a reconciliation between Sunnis and Shiites. The United Nations, the Iraqi government and Shiite religious authorities have pledged money toward rebuilding the dome. Iraqi officials say $50 million has been earmarked for the work. But Shiites want the work to be done by Shiites, and Sunnis have been reluctant to relinquish control of the shrine. And in a country torn by sectarian civil war, Shiites can no longer travel through Sunni areas without considerable risk.

Shiite lawmakers pushed through the establishment of a new military unit named the Brigade of the Two Saints to protect construction materials, workers and pilgrims on the treacherous 60-mile stretch of road between Baghdad and Samarra. Sunnis see the new unit as a provocation. Americans, for their part, fear the unit could become a sectarian tool or a target.

Thus, the shrine remains a hostage of the country’s warring sects and the dome a bombed-out crater.

Fuad, the interpreter who was one of the first to see the devastation, thinks Al Qaeda was behind the attack. But he also blames the Shiite-led government and American commanders for failing to recognize what was at stake in the ancient city on the bank of the Tigris River.

“They didn’t think Samarra was a strategic city,” he says, “but it was.”

*

roug@latimes.com

Times staff writer Raheem Salman in Baghdad contributed to this report.