Baghdad, Iraq - A car bomb exploded outside a Sunni Muslim mosque in southern Baghdad on Friday, killing at least eight people, officials said. Masked gunmen appeared at the scene later, firing randomly at people gathered near the blast-damaged building.
An Associated Press photographer saw at least two bystanders gunned down by the masked men, one of whom held a pistol to the head of a woman.
A Sunni cleric was also abducted from his central Baghdad home by at least a dozen armed men wearing Interior Ministry police uniforms, his relatives said. It was the latest kidnapping of a Sunni Arab by men wearing uniforms of the security forces.
The mosque bombing and cleric's kidnapping come amid rising Sunni Arab claims that Shiite-led Interior Ministry forces and militiamen are targeting once-dominant Sunnis in a widening campaign of sectarian violence.
Friday's car bomb was parked about 10 yards from the Iskan al-Shaabi mosque in the southwestern Dora neighborhood when it exploded after 1 p.m., shattering glass in the building and causing casualties inside and outside.
Police forces cordoned off the scene and prevented journalists approaching the mosque, where worshippers were attending the main weekly Muslim prayer service. At least six U.S. Humvees were seen in the area.
Ahmed Hassan, 36, who was praying inside the mosque at the time, said: ``Terrorists are trying to drive a wedge between Sunnis and Shiites.''
``Some worshippers were leaving and others were praying inside when the explosion blasted glass all over us and smoke filled the mosque,'' Hassan said. ``Outside we were shocked to see so many wounded people and cars on fire.''
At least eight people were killed and 21 wounded, according to Dr. Muhannad Jawad of Yarmouk General Hospital where the victims were brought to.
Several hours later after police left the scene, several masked gunmen arrived at the scene shouting ``Allahu Akbar,'' Arabic for ``God is great,'' before getting out and firing randomly at people gathered outside the mosque, according to an Associated Press photographer who witnessed the incident.
The photographer saw at least two onlookers shot and fall to the ground, as well as one of the gunmen holding a pistol to the head of a woman. The photographer at this point fled the scene for his safety, but heard a gunshot from behind him. It was unclear if any people were actually killed.
Separately, Sunni cleric Adel Khalil Dawoud, imam of the Nuaimi Sunni Muslim mosque in northern Baghdad, was dragged from his house late Thursday by at least a dozen armed men wearing police uniforms, his brother, Tahsin Khalil Azawi, said,
``Three vehicles, one with flashing police lights, came to our house and about 15 or 16 men wearing special forces uniforms got out and pushed my sister's two guards away and insulted them before breaking into the house and my sister's room saying that they wanted Adil,'' said Azawi.
Dawoud, whose sister is a former lawmaker, Rajaa Khalil Dawoud, and recently returned to Iraq from Jordan where he fled to for six months to avoid attacks by Shiites against Sunni religious leaders, his brother, Azawi said.
The cleric's sister told the men that her brother was in Jordan, but they refuted her claim, saying they knew he had returned, Azawi said. Seconds later they barged into his upstairs room and dragged him out and into one of the cars.
Azawi blamed Shiite militiamen linked to Iraq's top Shiite political leader, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, for the kidnapping.
A top Interior Ministry official said police were not involved in the abduction and investigations were underway to find the cleric.
``Those who are carrying out these operations are outlaws,'' said Maj. Gen. Hussein Ali Kamal, the ministry's undersecretary for intelligence. ``If we want to arrest anyone, even officials, we must obtain an arrest warrant from a court, then inform their family and carry out the arrest during daylight.''
Sunni leaders cite a spate of kidnappings and killings of Sunni Arabs as examples of the discrimination they face in post-Saddam Iraq, where Interior Ministry forces are now controlled by Shiite Muslims who had long been suppressed under the ex-president's regime.