During midday prayers on Friday, a car bomb ripped through a crowded mosque in Baghdad killing eight people and injuring 26 more, six of whom are said to be critical. The massacre was the latest attack to target Iraq’s Shiite majority.

A 10 year old child was amongst the dead and more young children were wounded as bodies were ripped apart – their parts strewn amongst piles of rubble and broken glass from the partly collapsed building. Hysterical men and women wailed in despair as they desperately searched for their loved ones; one man sat weeping whilst clutching the torn off foot of a child.

The Sunni minority are believed to be the driving force behind this and other recent attacks. Shiite mosques and funerals have become popular and frequent targets for the Sunni insurgents whose savage and cowardly attacks aim to create conflict amongst Iraqis.

The car containing the bomb had been parked outside the Al-Subeih mosque in New Baghdad since early morning.

This latest attack comes after a video was released on the Internet showing Insurgents shooting an innocent survivor of a helicopter crash on Thursday – a shooting in cold-blood: the crash said to have been caused by a missile attack.

Iraqi leaders are still struggling to form a Cabinet that will include members of the Sunni, in a quest to bring the two sides together.

The hope that the war against Saddam Hussein would put an end to needless suffering amongst innocent Iraqis seems to have been nothing but a dream.

While such atrocities as have been witnessed during the past weeks continue to shadow the lives of innocent men, women and children, Iraqis will never truly understand the meaning of freedom.