Baghdad, Iraq – A pair of suicide bombers detonated explosives belts inside two Shiite mosques in the northern Kurdish town of Khanaqin on Friday, collapsing the buildings and killing at least 74 people and wounding more than 100.
The attack came as worshipers were gathering for Friday prayers.
It was the deadliest coordinated bombing in Iraq in nearly three months and came just hours after two suicide truck bombs exploded outside a hotel in downtown Baghdad that houses many foreign journalists.
Those blasts killed at least six Iraqis and injured more than 40 and destroyed a neighboring apartment building.
In Washington, Republicans and Democrats clashed Friday in a sometimes raucous floor fight in the House of Representatives after Republican leaders sought to renounce Democratic Rep. John Murtha’s call for a prompt withdrawal of troops from Iraq.
The House voted 403-3 against a GOP resolution to pull troops immediately out of Iraq. Democratic leaders dismissed the measure as a political stunt that distorted Murtha’s intentions. The three votes in favor were cast by Democrats.
Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., called the measure “a piece of garbage” and an attack on Murtha. The Pennsylvania Democrat, a decorated veteran, said Thursday that it was time for the troops to come home.
Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., said of the nonbinding resolution, “We want to make sure that we support our troops that are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. We will not retreat.”
In Baghdad, the well- organized assault at the Hamra Hotel, perhaps the most heavily populated expatriate center outside the fortified Green Zone, was the latest strike in a growing jihadist campaign against the foreign presence in Iraq.
Closely resembling an attack last month on two other prominent hotels, it shattered any notion that journalists might have had about retaining a protected or neutral status in this war.
At least a dozen major Western news organizations have offices and living quarters in the Hamra compound.
The collapse of the nearby apartment building sent a mushroom-shaped cloud above the Baghdad skyline.
An American colonel said that at least five people were still trapped in the rubble of the apartment building at 10:30 a.m., more than two hours after the attack.
In the afternoon, a similarly grim scene unfolded in Khanaqin, near the Iranian border 100 miles northeast of Baghdad, as dozens of people began sifting through the rubble of the two mosques.
The explosions had taken place about noon, at the start of prayers, and were followed by a smaller bombing outside a bank, an Interior Ministry official said. The Khanaqin hospital overflowed with victims, and many of the injured had to be rushed outside the town for treatment.
The attack was the deadliest in the country since a triple truck bombing Sept. 29 in the Shiite town of Balad claimed a similar number of victims.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.