Baghdad bridge stampede kills 965
(AFP)
Updated: 2005-09-01 06:59

The incident could further stoke tensions between the country's Shiite majority and the ousted Sunni elite which has provided the backbone to the raging insurgency, only days after divisions were revived over the writing of the country's post-Saddam constitution.

A carpet of shoes belonging to the victims littered the bridge where waist-high concrete barriers designed to foil car bombers were stained with the blood of victims who had been crushed against them.

"It was Saddamists and Zarqawists who spread rumours on the bridge and that is why people panicked," national security advisor Muwaffaq al-Rubaie told the television.

People injured lined the corridors of Baghdad's hospitals as they struggled to cope with the enormity of the disaster.

"The crowd started to panic and women and children were being trampled underfoot," said Abdul Walid, 54, lying dazed on a hospital floor. "My son was on my shoulders, I don't know where he is now -- everybody was suffocating to death so I eventually had to jump."

An Al-Qaeda linked group calling itself the Jaiech Al-Taifa al-Mansoura (Army of the Victorious Community) claimed it carried out the attack on the mosque to "punish the genocides committed against Sunnis."

The US military said its helicopters had fired on the rebels who carried out the mortar attack and Iraqi officials said seven of them were killed.

Officials said 25 people died of poisoning after eating or drinking products that had been deliberately contaminated.

Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari, a member of the majority Shiite community, declared a three-day mourning period and went on television to appeal for national unity.

He described it as a "terrorist attack not separate from terrorist attacks in the past".

The tragedy provoked an international outcry with messages of sympathy flowing in from the United Nations, the United States, the European Union and the Arab League.

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