By DPA
Baghdad : Attacks on Sunni and Shiite holy places and mosques continued in Iraq for the third day with the bombing of a Sunni shrine in Basra Friday, Independent Iraqi News Agency reported citing Zubair police in Basra province.
During the early hours of Friday, a bomb targeted the 7th-century tomb of Sahabi (companion of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad) Talha bin Obaid Ellah, 20 km west of Basra.
The bombing destroyed large portions of the Marqad tomb and mosque, its minaret and four domes.
The shrine, built by the Iraqi Awqaf (endowments) ministry over an area of 1,000 square metres, is a holy site for Sunni Muslims, who visit it from all over the Islamic world. It was renovated under Saddam Hussein's regime.
Basra is 550 kilometres south of Baghdad.
On Wednesday, extremists blew up the minarets of one of the holiest religious sites for Shiite Muslims in the northern Iraqi town of Samarra, the second attack on the site.
A previous attack in February 2006 on the Golden Mosque of Samarra, which contains the tombs of two of Shia's most revered imams making it a major pilgrimage site, unleashed a wave of sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shiites that has continued until today.
The Golden Mosque contains relics of the imams Hassan al-Askari and of Ali al-Hadi who lived in the 9th century and who are regarded by Shiites as the 10th and 11th imams after the Prophet Mohamed.
The bombing was followed by other revenge attacks on more than seven other Shiite and Sunni mosques and shrines.