BAGHDAD, Dec. 3 (UPI) -- An assault on a police station and an apparently intra-Muslim terror attack rocked northern Baghdad Friday, leaving at least 26 dead.
Four suicide bombers detonated a minibus near a Shiite mosque in a largely Sunni neighborhood, Sky News reported. Casualty reports varied, though 14 deaths and 19 injuries were quickly confirmed.
Meanwhile, at about the same time and in the same neighborhood, insurgents used rockets to attack a police station, killing at least 12 officers.
A group headed by Abu Musab Zarqawi claimed responsibility for both attacks.
Much of the anti-U.S. insurgency is based in Sunni communities that were often benefactors of former ruler Saddam Hussein's policies, and many Sunni leaders oppose January's vote, in part because it stands to vault the majority Shiites into power for the first time.
An Iraqi official said the violence was shocking to most al-Adhamiya residents because, although it is a Sunni-dominated area, the Sunnis have lived in peace with the Shiites for many years. He blamed Saddam devotees for the violence.
"These people are (the) remains of Saddam loyalists and people from Fallujah who are trying to stir up a civil war by targeting the Shiites in the area," he said.
