A truck bomb targeting the Shia Khilani mosque has resulted in the death of nearly 80 people in Baghdad, following a relatively quiet four-day curfew after the al-Askariya mosque attack . A suicide bomber had killed at least 21 people at the same mosque at the end of May. Police say an additional 130 people were wounded as they left the mosque during afternoon prayers.

Sheik Saleh al-Haidari, the mosque’s imam, said; “This attack was planned and carried out by sick souls, damaging the mosque’s outer wall and collapsing my office and the room above it. There are number of bodies being pulled from the rubble and a number of worshipers were killed or injured.”

A suicide bomber has killed 78 people when he rammed a truck into a Shia mosque in Baghdad just hours after 10,000 US troops began an offensive north of the capital.

The wall surrounding the Khilani mosque was knocked down by the blast and part of the main structure was destroyed. Several cars also caught on fire.

The explosion, which occurred around 2pm (11:00 GMT), sent smoke billowing over buildings and rattled windows across the center of the city.

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