Iraqis bemoan shrine bombing and chaos it unleashed

By Ahmed Rasheed

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - It was a day that put Iraq on a collision course with sectarian civil war.

Exactly one year ago, militants blew up a revered Shi'ite shrine in the city of Samarra, setting off a wave of bloodletting that has killed tens of thousands of Iraqis.

On Thursday, Iraqis bemoaned how one act had lifted the lid on tensions that had been boiling between majority Shi'ites and minority Sunni Arabs. Many worried whether it would be possible to heal the divisions that the bombing had sown.

"It was not just the holy shrine that was targeted, it was the unity of Iraq," said Qasim Haddad, 65, a Shi'ite retired teacher sipping tea in a Baghdad cafe.

"Those evil terrorists realized how to break the warm ties between Sunnis and Shi'ites. It will take years to repair these sectarian feelings and for Iraqis to forget their agonies."

Added Ahmed Wael, 35, a Sunni pharmacist:

"Ties that had linked Iraqis together for ages were destroyed. Families who lost loved ones will never forgive."

Iraq's Shi'ite-led government has blamed al Qaeda for the attack on February 22 last year, when militants entered the Golden Mosque in Samarra at dawn and set off charges that destroyed a dome that had been one of the biggest in the Islamic world.

The Golden Mosque is one of the four major Shi'ite shrines in Iraq. It is the only one in a predominately Sunni city.

"After the bombing ... everybody just began killing each other. Iraq is now in an unofficial civil war," said Taha Shukur, 33, an engineer in Baghdad.

Before the bombing, sectarian violence was on the rise.

But attention was still on the Sunni insurgency against American and Iraqi security forces, which erupted soon after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 toppled Saddam Hussein and enabled Shi'ites to assume power for the first time in Iraq.

Since the Golden Mosque was attacked, the sectarian conflict has grabbed world attention because of its potential to tear Iraq apart.

In Baghdad, Shi'ite and Sunni gunmen forced members of the opposing sect to leave mixed neighborhoods. For centuries a proud, mixed city, Baghdad is now roughly divided: Shi'ites on the east of the Tigris River and Sunnis on the west.

Some Iraqis believe rebuilding the Golden Mosque could help reconciliation, but there has been no reconstruction, partly because of disagreements over how the work will be carried out.