Two blasts at Iraqi Sunni mosque kill 43 ~ [is this Iraqi Bosky?]

Two bombs exploded outside a Sunni Muslim mosque in the Iraqi city of Baquba as worshippers left Friday prayers, killing at least 43 people in one of the deadliest attacks in a month-long surge in sectarian violence.

Attacks on Sunni and Shi'ite mosques, security forces and tribal leaders have mounted since troops raided a Sunni protest camp near Kirkuk a month ago, and fears are intensifying of a return to all-out conflict.

The increasingly sectarian civil war in neighbouring Syria is emboldening Iraqi Sunni insurgents and straining relations between the two Muslim groups in Iraq, where tensions are at their worst since U.S. troops pulled out at the end of 2011.

On Friday, one bomb exploded outside the mosque in Baquba, about 50 km (30 miles) northeast of the capital Baghdad, and a second explosion tore into crowds of people rushing to help victims of the first attack, police said.

Local television showed images of bodies, pools of blood and the victims' scattered shoes.

"I was about 30 metres from the first explosion. When the first exploded, I ran to help them, and the second one went off. I saw bodies flying and I had shrapnel in my neck," said Hashim Munjiz, a college student at the site.

Another eight people were also killed and more than 20 wounded on Friday when a roadside bomb hit people gathering for the funeral of a Sunni Muslim cleric killed in Baghdad in an attack a day earlier.

No group claimed responsibility for the attacks.http://www.ndtv.com/article/world/two-blasts-at-iraqi-sunni-mosque-kill-43-368208