HILLA, Iraq - Two more Sunni mosques were bombed early Thursday in apparent reprisals after a revered Shiite shrine was damaged by suspected Al-Qaeda militants in northern Iraq, police said.
The Al-Mustafa mosque in Iskandiriyah and the Al-Bashir mosque in Mahawil, both towns located in Babil province south of Baghdad, were bombed in the early hours Thursday, Lieutenant Kamal al-Ameri of Hilla police said.
Since the attack on the Al-Askari shrine in the northern town of Samarra on Wednesday, six Sunni mosques have been attacked.
A few hours after the Samarra bombing, three mosques in Iskandiriyah - the Grand Mosque, the Abdullah Jubburi mosque and the Hatteen mosque - and the Khudair al-Janabi mosque in Baghdad's Bayaa neighbourhood, were bombed, police and local residents said.
The attacks came after militants destroyed the two minarets of the Shiite Al-Askari shrine in Samarra, the second such attack after the previous bombing of the shrine on February 22, 2006.
US officials said the minarets were blown up by Al-Qaeda.
