BAGHDAD: Suicide attackers wearing women's robes blew themselves up on Friday in a Shia mosque in northern Baghdad, killing at least 79 people and wounding more than 160, police said. It was the second major attack against Shia targets.

The violence came as United States Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad warned that Iraq faces the possibility of sectarian civil war if efforts to build a national unity government do not succeed, and that such a conflict could affect the entire region.

Police Lt. Col. Falah al-Mohammedawi said the blasts were caused by two suicide attackers wearing black abayas at the Buratha mosque, which is affiliated with the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the main Shia party.

Jalal Eddin al-Sagheer, the preacher at the mosque and one of the country's leading politicians, said there were three assailants. One came through the women's security checkpoint and blew up first, he said. Another raced into the mosque's courtyard while a third came to his office before detonating themselves, said al-Sagheer, who was not injured.

"Campaign of lies"

He accused Sunni politicians and clerics of waging "a campaign of distortions and lies against the Buratha mosque, claiming that it includes Sunni prisoners and mass graves of Sunnis".

"Shias are the ones who are targeted as part of this dirty sectarian war waged against them as the world watches silently," he told Al-Arabiya television.

The attack occurred as worshippers were leaving after Friday prayers. Earlier on Friday, the Interior Ministry cautioned people in Baghdad to avoid crowds near mosques and markets due to a car bomb threat.

Rescuers carried the bodies from the mosque compound on makeshift wooden wheelbarrows and loaded them on the backs of pickup trucks.

On Thursday, a car bomb exploded about 300 yards from the Imam Ali mosque in Najaf, the most sacred shrine in Iraq for Shia Muslims. Ten people were killed, police said.

The attack on Friday was likely to increase tensions between Sunni and Shia Muslims, already at a high level following the February 22 blast at a Shia shrine in Samarra and reprisal killings. That bombing triggered reprisal attacks against Sunni mosques and clerics.

A senior Sunni politician condemned Friday's attack and called for unity among all Iraqis. "Bloodshed is forbidden," Adnan al-Dulaimi told Iraqiyah television. "I call all religious figures and politicians to work together to avoid provocative acts of sedition."

Intelligence received

The Interior Ministry, which oversees the police, said it had received intelligence that insurgents were preparing to set off seven car bombs in Baghdad. Mr. Al-Mohammedawi said the alert would remain until the bombs were discovered and deactivated.

Security forces were searching the city, with orders to protect holy sites and be on the lookout for suspicious cars, the statement said, urging citizens to "be cautious, and to avoid gatherings or crowds while leaving markets, mosques and churches".

The statement also warned that legal measures would be taken against "any security official who fails to take the necessary procedures to foil any terrorist attack in his area". The Shia-dominated Ministry faces accusations of militia infiltration in its ranks.

Other car bombs were possibly heading to some southern Iraqi provinces as well, the statement said, putting security forces in the south on high alert.

The U.S. ambassador also condemned Friday's attack, saying those who carried it out were the "enemies of all faiths and of all humanity". He urged Iraqis to restrain from retaliatory violence and instead "come together to fight terror".

Polarisation on sectarian lines

Mr. Khalilzad told the British Broadcasting Corporation that political contacts among Sunni, Shia and Kurdish leaders were improving, but that within the general population, "polarisation along sectarian lines" was intensifying, in part due to the role of armed militias.

He warned that "a sectarian war in Iraq" could draw in neighbouring countries, "affecting the entire region". "That is a possibility if we do not do everything we can to make this country work," Mr. Khalilzad said. "What is happening here has huge implications for the region and the world."

He said the best way to prevent such a conflict was to form a government including representatives of all groups. That effort has stalled over Sunni and Kurdish opposition to the Shia candidate to lead the government, Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari.

Mr. Khalilzad avoided any criticism of Mr. al-Jaafari. He said many competent Iraqis were capable of leading the government and the current prime minister "certainly is one of them". — AP

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