A suicide car bomber killed 14 Shia worshippers as they left a Baghdad mosque today ahead of elections in nine days.
US soldiers secure the area following a car bomb explosion in front of a Shiite mosque in Baghdad today
The bomb, which exploded at a small green-domed mosque in western Baghdad as the faithful finished praying, wounded 40 people, including children.
A wall in front of the mosque was damaged and three cars were destroyed.
Militants have stepped up violence and increased the number of kidnappings of foreign workers ahead of the January 30th election. They are determined to destabilise the country and undermine the US military presence there nearly two years after the invasion.
The bombing is the latest in a string of attacks targeting leaders, mosques and parties representing the Shia community, which has a 60 per cent majority in Iraq.
Shias are expected to finish ahead in the election to the 275-seat national assembly after decades of oppression during Saddam Hussein's Sunni-dominant rule.
The expectation that Shias will rise to power has fuelled tension with the Sunni Arab community, which accounts for about 20 per cent of Iraq's population and has been the main source of support for the insurgency gripping the country.
Several Sunni Arab parties say they will boycott the poll because it is not safe for supporters to vote in Sunni areas.
Last month, a car bomb outside the head offices of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), one of two leading Shia political parties, killed a dozen people.
In the past two weeks, two people considered close to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's foremost Shia cleric, have also been killed.
The surge in religious tension has stoked fears that Iraq could descend into civil war, but leaders in both communities have played down such a possibility and have urged Iraqis to oppose militants such as Jordan's Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
Zarqawi, who is allied to al-Qaeda and active in Iraq, told Washington in an audio tape posted on the Internet yesterday that the war would drag on for "months and years", and he dismissed Sistani as an "imam of atheism".
"The fruits of jihad (holy war) come after much patience and a lengthy stay in the battlefield . . . which could last months and years," a person identifying himself as Zarqawi said.