More than 111 killed after attack on shrine

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- At least 111 people were believed killed in two days of sectarian rage unleashed by Wednesday's attack on the revered Shiite Askariya shrine in Samarra, as Sunni Arabs suspended their participation in talks on a new government.\nGunmen killed 47 civilians and left their bodies in a ditch near Baghdad Thursday as militia battles and sectarian reprisals raged on between Sunni and Shiite religious groups. \nThe hard-line Sunni Clerical Association of Muslim Scholars said 168 Sunni mosques had been attacked around the country, 10 imams killed and 15 abducted since the shrine attack. The Interior Ministry said it could only confirm figures for Baghdad, where it had reports of 19 mosques attacked, one cleric killed and one abducted.\nThe bullet-ridden bodies of a prominent female correspondent and two other journalists who had been covering Wednesday's explosion in Samarra were found on the outskirts of the city.\nThe sectarian violence threatened to derail U.S. plans to form a new national unity government representing all factions, including Sunni Arabs, who form the backbone of the insurgency.\nPresident Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, summoned political leaders to a meeting Thursday. But the biggest Sunni faction in the new parliament, the Iraqi Accordance Front, refused to attend, citing the attacks on Sunni mosques.\n"It is illogical to negotiate with parties that are trying to damage the political process," said Tariq al-Hashimi, a leader of the Accordance Front.\nPresident Bush said the bombing was intended to divide the Iraqi people.\n"The act was an evil act," Bush said. "The destruction of a holy site is a political act intending to create strife. So I am pleased with the voices of reason that have spoken out."\nBush said the U.S. was committed to helping rebuild the mosque.\nAs the country veered toward sectarian war, the government extended a curfew in Baghdad and Salaheddin province for two days. All leaves for Iraqi soldiers and police were canceled and personnel ordered to report to their units.\nThe U.S. military said four soldiers from the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, were killed Wednesday when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb near Hawijah.\nThree others from the 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team of the 4th Infantry Division died when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb Wednesday near Balad, 50 miles north of Baghdad.\nRadical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr accused the Iraqi government and U.S. forces for failing to protect the Samarra shrine, also known as the Golden Mosque, and ordered his militia to defend Shiite holy sites across Iraq.\n"If the government had real sovereignty, then nothing like this would have happened," al-Sadr said in a statement. "Brothers in the Mahdi Army must protect all Shiite shrines and mosques, especially in Samarra."\nThe destruction of the gleaming dome of the 1,200-year-old Askariya shrine sent crowds of angry Shiites into the streets across Iraq. The crowds included members of al-Sadr's Mahdi Army and other Shiite militias that the United States wants abolished.\nA spokesman for the Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars blamed the violence on the country's top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, and other Shiite religious leaders who called for demonstrations against the shrine attack.\nAbdul-Salam Al-Kubaisi also said U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad may also have inflamed the situation when he warned Monday that the United States would not continue to support institutions run by sectarian groups with links to armed militias. Sunnis accuse Shiite militiamen operating in the ranks of the Interior Ministry, which controls the police, of widespread abuses.\n"Without doubt, these statements mobilized all the Shiites," al-Kubaisi said. "It made them ready to go down to the street at any moment."\nBritish Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Thursday that he suspects Al-Qaida in Iraq, led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was responsible for the mosque attack.\n"It has the hallmarks of their nihilism," Straw told a news conference in London. He called on leaders of Iraq's religious communities to defuse tensions caused by the attack.\nPrime Minister Tony Blair said the attack was "an act of desperation as well as desecration."\nAssociated Press writers Charles J. Hanley and Qassim Abdul-Zahra in Baghdad, Hana al-Daghistani in Baqouba, and Ziad Khalaf in Samarra contributed to this report.