Baghdad, Iraq - Iraq's most influential Shiite political leader called Friday for Sunni-Shiite unity as religious figures sought to calm passions and pull the nation from the brink of civil war after the bombing of a Shiite shrine two days ago and a wave of deadly reprisal attacks.
An extraordinary daytime curfew in Baghdad and three nearby provinces appeared to have blunted the wave of attacks on Sunni mosques that followed Wednesday's bombing which destroyed the golden dome of the Shiite Askariya shrine in Samarra.
Still, Iraqis feared that the two days of violence which followed the Samarra attack had pushed the country closer to sectarian civil war than at any time since the U.S.-led invasion nearly three years ago.
Several joint Sunni-Shiite prayer services were announced for Friday, including one at the Askariya shrine. But security forces turned away about 700 people, virtually all of them Sunnis, who showed up for the service.
In a statement read over national television, top Shiite leader Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, said those who carried out the Wednesday bombing at the Askariya shrine in Samarra "do not represent the Sunnis in Iraq."
Al-Hakim instead blamed Saddam Hussein loyalists and followers of al-Qaida in Iraq boss Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
"We all have to unite in order to eliminate them," al-Hakim said in a statement. "This is what al-Zarqawi is working for, that is, to ignite a sectarian strife in the country," he added. "We call for self-restraint and not to be dragged by the plots of the enemy of Iraq."
U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad acknowledged the danger facing Iraq — and the U.S. strategy for disengaging from this country. But he also said this was also a "moment of opportunity" for Iraq.
"This tragedy can be used to bring people together," Khalilzad told reporters.
Late Thursday, Iraqi state television announced an extension of the nighttime curfew until 4 p.m. Friday in Baghdad and the nearby provinces of Diyala, Babil and Salaheddin, where the shrine bombing took place. But security forces permitted worshippers to walk to mosque for midday prayers.
A large crowd attended Friday prayers at Baghdad's Abu Hanifa mosque, Baghdad's most important Sunni site, where Imam Ahmed Hasan al-Taha denounced the attack on the Shiite shrine as a conspiracy intended to draw Iraqis into sectarian strife.
There was also little sign of the curfew in Baghdad's teaming Shiite slum, Sadr City, where armed militiamen loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr have been out in force since Wednesday's attack. Iraqi police found six bodies handcuffed and shot near a parking lot in the area, the Interior Ministry said.
In the southern Shiite heartland, more than 10,000 people converged on Basra's al-Adillah mosque, where a representative of Iraq's top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, called another joint service with Sunnis.
The extraordinary security measures helped curb — but not eliminate — the violence.
In Basra, where the curfew was not in effect, gunmen Friday kidnapped three children of a Shiite legislator from near the family home, police said. They were freed hours later in a raid that also netted a suspect, police Cap. Mushtaq Khazim said. Al-Jbouri is a member of the Islamic Dawa Party-Iraq Organization and is the former head of Basra's provincial council.
Elsewhere, police found the bodies of two bodyguards for the Basra head of the Sunni Endowment, a government body that cares for Sunni mosques and shrines. They had been shot.
South of the capital, in the religiously mixed area known as the "Triangle of Death," gunmen burst into a Shiite home in Latifiyah, separated men from women, and killed five of the males, police Capt. Ibrahim Abdullah said.
In the northern town of Birtilla, which is not covered by the curfew, 500 Shiites marched to demand Saddam's execution and death to Sunni fanatics.
The biggest Sunni Arab bloc in parliament announced Thursday it was pulling out of talks with the main Shiite coalition, but Khalilzad was optimistic they would reverse the decision. Without the establishment of an inclusive government, the U.S. strategy for disengagement from Iraq will collapse.
But Khalilzad predicted the Sunnis would return to the negotiating table and chances for a unity government remained good. He said Iraqi leaders on all sides appreciated the need for compromise to avert a civil war.
He said several steps were being considered by the Shiite-dominated government, including an investigation to establish responsibility for the shrine attack and better protection for religious sites.
He also said a fund to rebuild the Askariya shrine and repair Sunni mosques damaged in the backlash was under study, as well as a ban on carrying weapons without authorization and the appointment of an advisory political committee to help calm tensions.
Anger, however, was running deep and it could take time to determine whether the country has passed through this latest crisis.
On Thursday, the Sunni clerical Association of Muslim Scholars said at least 168 Sunni mosques had been attacked. The Interior Ministry said it could only confirm figures for Baghdad, where it had reports of 19 mosques attacked, one cleric killed and one abducted.