Appeals for calm after mosque blast

June 13, 2007

Iraq's Prime Minister blames Sunni Islamist al Qaeda and supporters of Saddam Hussein for an attack on a revered Shi'ite shrine. The bomb attack has damaged minarets at the Golden Mosque in Samarra where a blast that wrecked its giant dome last year unleashed a tide of sectarian violence that claimed thousands of lives. The top U.S. military commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus and the U.S. ambassador Ryan Crocker have issued a joint statement in response to this latest attack, calling on Iraqis to "reject this call to violence".