Amid fears of revenge attacks a day after a suicide bomber killed 47 Iraqis and wounded more than 80 in a packed Shiite funeral tent in Mosul, religious leaders called for calm yesterday. Grieving families canceled a planned public funeral procession for the victims in the northern city after a mortar shell early yesterday slammed into the site of the carnage. Sunni leaders, fearful of reprisals, urged calm in the city, Iraq's third largest and one of its most ethnically and religiously diverse. "It was a terrorist attack meant to spark civil war but I think the Sunnis and Shiites will not succumb," said Nureddine Hayali, a spokesman for the Islamic Party. Iraq's Shiite clerics also urged cool heads after the calamity. The office of Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, the spiritual guide for Iraq's Shiites, said he was calling for "unity and solidarity among all Iraqis despite the attacks targeting the innocent." Sistani has consistently denounced vigilante justice against Iraq's Sunnis, perceived as fueling the insurgency, whom the 15-million strong Shiite majority blames for many attacks carried out against it. In some sections of Baghdad, Shiite individuals and militias have started taking action against suspected insurgents, ranging from making arrests to killing people, although the incidents are still isolated.
Shiite clerics urged the incoming Iraqi government to do more to protect the Shiites. "Those innocents (who were killed) committed no wrongdoing other than being Shiites. The government should find a solution for that problem and we are stretching hands of help," said Sheikh Sadreddin Kubanji during a sermon in Najaf. Meanwhile, US military officials said they had detained a female member of the Al-Qaeda group headed by Iraq's most wanted man, Abu Mussab Al-Zarqawi.