A gas cylinder filled with explosives and strapped to a bicycle blew up outside a packed Shia mosque in central Iraq as Friday prayers ended, killing at least six people and injuring dozens.
People were exchanging handshakes after prayers in the town of Baquba when the bomb went off, mainly hitting those who had been praying outside because the mosque was full.
The bicycle had been parked in the centre of the street outside, witnesses and police said. "At the end of prayers, it exploded," police Sergeant Haki Ismail Mustafa told Reuters.
He said six people were killed.
Tamouz Rabeai, a doctor at a nearby hospital, said 37 people were brought there injured. "There are three or four in critical condition," he said. "The rest are in stable condition."
A badly burned taxi was at the gates of the mosque and windows of nearby shops were shattered. The mosque itself escaped damage except for some scratches from shrapnel.
Scores of shoes, taken off for prayers, were scattered across the bloodstained ground.
"We had finished prayers and were shaking hands when I heard the sound of a large explosion," said 43 year-old trader Falah Hasan, who was lying in hospital with his head bandaged and blood splattered on his brown cardigan.
"It happened next to me. Those next to me were killed."
US military officials on the scene said they were investigating.
Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad, is in a largely Sunni Muslim area, which is a hotbed of resistance to the US-led occupation of Iraq. US forces have mounted major operations in and around the town to try to capture insurgents.
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