Bombing of Sunni mosque in key Iraq province kills 10

baghdad -- A suicide bomber detonated a vest packed with explosives in a Sunni Arab mosque in Fallouja on Monday, killing 10 worshipers, including the imam, and shattering what had been a period of relative calm for a region that was once the most volatile hotbed of Iraq’s insurgency.

The attack at the end of evening prayers was blamed on the militant group Al Qaeda in Iraq by American military officials and a Fallouja police official.

The blast, which killed Imam Abdul-Sattar Jumaili and nine other men and injured 11, underscored the persistent violence gripping Iraq despite the recent U.S. troop buildup and a fresh pledge by contentious Iraqi government officials to work together.

Sectarian violence between Sunni and Shiite Muslims was blamed for gun attacks that killed at least three Shiite pilgrims along a 50-mile route from Baghdad to a shrine in Karbala. Clashes between rival Shiite militias in Karbala left three dead and scores injured as the city filled with an estimated 1 million faithful for today’s culmination of the annual Shabaniyah ritual, witnesses reported.

The U.S. military also announced Monday the deaths of four American troops in weekend clashes.

Two of the four Americans, both soldiers, died in a firefight with insurgents in Samarra on Sunday. The other two, Marines, died in separate combat incidents in Anbar west of Baghdad on Saturday and Sunday.

“No one, from the Marine lance corporal to our commanding general, would say that AQI [Al Qaeda in Iraq] is defeated or completely swept out of Al Anbar,” said Maj. Jeff Pool, spokesman for the forces deployed in western Iraq. “Last week we had about 70 enemy incidents -- attacks or attempted attacks -- in Al Anbar. Last year at this time there were about 450 enemy incidents.”

In Salahuddin province, north of Baghdad, two bombs detonated near the route of the governor’s motorcade in what some witnesses believed was the third assassination attempt on a provincial leader in as many weeks. Unlike the leaders of Qadisiya and Muthanna provinces killed earlier this month, Gov. Hamad Hamoud Shightay was unharmed.

He said he believed the bombs were actually targeted at U.S. troops in the area.

In Baghdad, the body of a CBS News translator who had been kidnapped last week was one of about a dozen that turned up on the streets of the capital Monday. Anwar Abbas Lafta had worked for the network for 10 months after spending the previous three years in the employ of the U.S. military, CBS News reported from New York.

The annual Shiite pilgrimage to Karbala to mark the birth date of the 9th century “Hidden Imam” drew hostile fire, presumably from Sunni militants, in at least four venues Monday. Snipers had also harassed the procession over the weekend, when the first marchers began walking toward the birthplace of Mohammed Mahdi, an imam who disappeared 1,200 years ago and who the Shiite faithful believe will return one day to rule over a peaceful era.

The violence in crowded Karbala was said to have occurred when police believed to be aligned with the militia loyal to Najaf Shiite leader Abdelaziz Hakim waved his son’s bodyguards through checkpoints without searches. That enraged members of the rival Mahdi Army loyal to radical anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr.

The militiamen clashed, drawing in marchers fed up with what they considered excessive security, and ended in an eruption of gunfire that left three pilgrims dead, said Ali Mohammed Hussein, a Najaf student who witnessed the incident.

Sunni militants including Al Qaeda in Iraq and remnants of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party have waged deadly attacks on past Shiite pilgrimages, prompting authorities to order a major security crackdown this week throughout central Iraq.

Fears of renewed bloodshed have been heightened by the deep discord in the Iraqi government led by Prime Minister Nouri Maliki, a Shiite widely accused of sectarian bias and allowing Shiite death squads to run amok.

Late Sunday, Maliki and leaders of four other factions in his government announced that they had reached common ground on several key issues that Washington has urged the Iraqi Cabinet and parliament to resolve, such as a commitment to new elections, constitutional reforms and easing of a ban on former Baathists being hired for government jobs.

The Bush administration hailed the accord as a sign that the fractious leaders had found a way to work together.

The statement proclaiming agreement on several elements of 18 “benchmarks” set by Washington was signed by Maliki, Sunni Vice President Tariq Hashimi, Shiite Vice President Adel Abdul Mehdi and the country’s two top Kurdish politicians, President Jalal Talabani and Massoud Barzani, head of the semiautonomous Kurdistan region.

President Bush spoke by telephone in five separate calls from Air Force One with Maliki and the four other senior officials Monday morning, the White House said.

He offered congratulations on the reconciliation statement and said it reflected their commitment “to work together for the benefit of all Iraqis.”

U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker called the agreement “a positive and encouraging message that the government is making all efforts to achieve benefits for Iraqi people.” But another senior U.S. diplomat here conceded that “clearly there’s more work to be done.”

Hashimi, whose Iraqi Islamic Party, or IIP, is the main Sunni faction within the Tawafiq bloc boycotting Maliki’s government, cast the accord as little more than symbolic agreement on a smattering of issues and a willingness to continue getting together on an informal basis.

“We can say that what happened yesterday could be considered a political relaxation,” Hashimi said in a statement issued in response to the government’s claim to have broken the political logjam. “But we deny the news that talked about the IIP joining the coalition [of Shiite and Kurdish parties formed 10 days ago].”

The touting of the late-night communique by Maliki’s spokesman, Ali Dabbagh, appeared to be an attempt to mute the torrent of criticism directed at the prime minister as U.S. politicians and generals prepare for a major evaluation of Washington’s Iraq war strategy next month.

Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of the 160,000 U.S. troops deployed in Iraq, and Crocker are to address Congress in mid-September on the results of a nearly 30,000-troop buildup over the last six months and the logic of keeping the deployment at the current level.

The report of progress here followed mounting calls from U.S. politicians for Maliki to resign. But there is dispute even among the prime minister’s critics as to whether another Iraqi figure could unify the government and get the benchmarks drafted into legislation for parliament to address when it returns from summer recess Sept. 4.

Relations between Washington and the Maliki government have also been strained by the unintentional deaths of Iraqi civilians during U.S. attacks on suspected insurgents. Seven women and children died in a U.S. strike on an apartment building in Samarra on Sunday, and Kurdish security officials said a U.S. helicopter mistakenly attacked two police checkpoints in the north later that day. In addition, two women were among eight people killed early Monday in a clash in Kut, 100 miles southeast of Baghdad.

“U.S. troops should take care to understand what [Iraqi] forces are deployed in the border areas,” the Kurdish Interior minister said in a statement that demanded an explanation from the U.S. military.

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carol.williams@latimes.com

Times staff writer James Gerstenzang in Bellevue, Wash., and special correspondents in Baghdad, Hillah, Samarra and Sulaymaniya contributed to this report.