29 people were killed during prayer services at Baghdad’s largest Sunnie mosque on Sunday night when a suicide bomber entered the building and blew himself up.
The bombers actions on a holy space was the same type of attack that brought the country to the brink of civil war five years ago. According to Iraqi security officials lawmaker Khalid al-Fahdawi, a Sunni , was killed in the attack which occurred at 9:40pm local time.
Security officials have counted 29 people among the dead while 38 more Iraqi’s were injured during the attack.
At this time no specific terrorist organization has claimed credit for the attack, although the method of suicide bombing is typically reserved for militant al-Qaeda members, which in itself is dominated by a Sunni faction.
While it may seem unlikely that al-Qaeda would attack their own religious faction, intelligence officers in the area have speculated for some time now that the group will do just about anything to re-ignite sectarian violence in the region.
If the suicide bomber was a member of al-Qaeda the move would be a departure from the groups recent attacks which have focused on Iraqi security forces in an attempt to prove how unstable the current government and their forces have been as the United States slowly pulls out of the area, leaving control of everyday operations to the Iraqi people.
