February 22, 2006

2006 al-Askari mosque bombing

Bombers destroy the al-Askari Shrine's golden dome

The explosions killed nobody inside the shrine. Within roughly 24 hours, police and military sources were reporting more than 130 deaths in the reprisals.

Police uniforms and charges under the dome

Attackers wearing Iraqi police-style uniforms infiltrated the al-Askari Shrine complex in Samarra overnight on 22 February 2006, restrained its guards, and planted explosives in and around the structure supporting the dome.

Two explosions around dawn brought down the shrine's gilded dome and damaged part of its northern wall. The blasts themselves killed no one, and substantial parts of the complex remained standing.

The details are less settled than they are usually told: contemporary reports placed the blasts at roughly 6:45 to 6:55 a.m., and accounts differ over whether four or seven attackers entered and whether five or nine guards were present.

Nobody claimed it that day

No organization claimed responsibility on 22 February. Iraqi officials immediately suspected Sunni extremists, and later Iraqi investigations and official U.S. military histories attributed the operation to al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Those later reconstructions differ over who took part, and none of it was publicly established on the day of the bombing.

Iraqi and U.S. forces surrounded the shrine, searched nearby houses and detained security personnel.

What followed before nightfall

Within hours, mass demonstrations began and militants attacked Sunni mosques — the Associated Press reported at least eight the first day, six in Baghdad and two in Basra. About 500 soldiers were reported sent into Sunni Baghdad neighbourhoods.

Police and military sources reported more than 130 retaliatory deaths within roughly 24 hours. The much larger figures of 1,000 to 1,300 that circulate refer to several subsequent days and were themselves contested.

Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani called for seven days of mourning while instructing followers not to attack Sunni mosques, and Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari called for calm. The dome that came down had been completed in 1905.

Sources

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How this was checked

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What the sources leave uncertain

Contemporary reports placed the blasts at approximately 6:45–6:55 a.m.; the frequently repeated 6:44 a.m. is not consistent across sources.
Accounts differ over whether four or seven attackers entered and whether five or nine guards were present. Later U.S. Army and Iraqi-government reconstructions should not be presented as uncontested eyewitness facts.
No group claimed responsibility immediately. AQI attribution is strong in later official histories but was not established publicly on the day of the bombing.
Aftermath death counts vary greatly by geographic scope, reporting window and whether ordinary insurgency deaths were included.