TEHRAN – The serious crime of the terrorists who bombed the holy shrines of the tenth and eleventh Shia Imams, Imam Hadi (AS) and Imam Hassan Askari (AS), in Samara, north Baghdad, on Wednesday have been actually intended to foment religious war between the Iraqi people.

Mohammad Khatami, the former Iranian president and the present head of the Institute for Dialogue among Civilizations, expressed regret over the bombings and said regardless of who has committed these crimes, the recent blasts will increase the unity among Muslims.

He also said that the Samara bombings have targeted the unity and sovereignty of the innocent Iraqi nation.

The Iranian Majlis Speaker, Gholam Ali Haddad Adel, said that during the recent years the awareness of the Iraqi nation has neutralized a great number of conspiracies. He expressed hope that the Iraqis can once again prevent a division between Shiites and Sunnis.

Ayatollah Makarem Shirazi has called the blasts an organized crime against Muslims. Speaking in the gathering of people in the city of Qom on Thursday, he said that the main policy of the global arrogance was to weaken the roots of Islam and also to trigger civil wars in Muslim countries. He added that all Islamic sects should maintain their unity at the current juncture.

Ayatollah Mohammad Imami Kashani, the Friday Prayer leader of Tehran, said that insulting the Prophet Mohammad (SA) and destroying the holy shrines of Imam Hadi (AS) and Imam Hassan Askari (AS) were measures in line with the conspiracies of the enemies of Islam.

He also noted that the main purpose behind these incidents was to create division between Sunnis and Shiites, adding that Mossad and the CIA were the real organizers of the Samara blasts.

Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad on Thursday blamed "Zionists and failed occupiers" for the bombing of the sacred shrines.

"These desperate actions have been made by a bunch of Zionists and failed occupiers," the president said in a speech in the central city of Shahr-e Kord.

Iranian Prosecutor General Ghorban-ali Dorri Najaf Abadi has noted that the perpetrators of the recent blasts in Samara intend to trigger a psychological war against the Islamic nations and to create division among them. The prosecutor general also said that it is hard to know who had conducted the bombings but one can not clear the Zionists and the United States of the charges.

Issuing a statement on Thursday, the Leader’s representative in Khorasan Razavi Province Ayatollah Va’ez Tabasi condemned the terrorist attacks on the Shiite holy shrines. He also said that all these blasts have been organized in order to create division between Muslims and also to compensate for the Israelis’ international defeat against Islamic nations.

Recent bombings can not hinder formation of an Islamic govt. in Iraq

The Deputy Interior Minister Mohammad Baqer Zolqadr has said that the blasts were a sign of enemies’ weakness against Muslims and noted that these terrorist attacks can not hinder the formation of an Islamic government in Iraq.

Dozens of governmental and non-governmental organizations have also issued separate statements condemning the terrorist attacks in Samara and calling on the Iraqi nation to maintain their unity and frustrate the enemies in achieving their main target that is to sow the seed of division among Muslims.

The Iraqi government, meanwhile, announced stepped-up security measures, including a ban on entering or leaving Baghdad and deployment of armed forces in tense areas.

Iraqi Shiite leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim said Friday the Sunni Arabs of Iraq were not responsible for the bombing of holy shrines.

"I stress that the bombing of the shrine was not an act of the Sunnis of Iraq, but the Zarqawists and the Saddamists," said Hakim, leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), the leading party in Iraq's Shiite United Iraqi Alliance.

He was referring to supporters of Al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and of ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

The alliance won 128 of parliament's 275 seats in the December elections and is currently holding talks with various political factions of Iraq to form a coalition government.

Hakim also called for unity between the Shiites and the Sunnis.

"The bombing of the shrine hurt us and provoked powerful feelings, but the burning of mosques and attacks on innocents later has also hurt us tremendously," he said in a statement.

"We strongly denounce the attacks on Sunni mosques and these incidents have further emphasized the need for unity to get rid of terrorists."

Dhafer al-Ani, spokesman for the biggest Sunni Arab bloc in parliament, praised al-Hakim's statement, calling it "a step on the road of healing the wounds."

Several joint Sunni-Shiite prayer services were announced for Friday, including one at the Askariya shrine. But security forces turned away about 700 people, virtually all of them Sunnis, who showed up for the service.