Mosque bombs kill two, Baghdad stays under curfew

BAGHDAD, July 21 (Reuters) Bombs killed two worshippers at mosques in Iraq during Friday prayers and authorities extended a daytime curfew on the capital Baghdad after one of the bloodiest weeks this year.

On the eve of a high-profile meeting intended to demonstrate reconciliation among sectarian and ethnic factions before a White House visit by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, leaders admitted despair on the chances of averting all-out civil war.

''Iraq as a political project is finished,'' a top government official told Reuters -- anonymously because the coalition led by the Shi'ite Muslim prime minister remains committed in public to a U.S.-sponsored constitution preserving Iraq's unity.

''The parties have moved to Plan B,'' said the official, adding blocs representing Sunnis, Kurds and majority Shi'ites were looking at ways to divide power and resources and to solve the conundrum of Baghdad's mixed population of seven million.

''There is serious talk of Baghdad being divided into east and west,'' said the official, who has long been a proponent of the present government's objectives. ''We are extremely worried.'' Officials and delegates from a range of political, tribal, regional and religious groups will meet in Baghdad's fortified Green Zone government compound tomorrow for the inaugural meeting of the National Reconciliation Commission.

Bombs outside Sunni mosques in Khalis, north of the capital, and in the mainly Shi'ite east of Baghdad, each killed one man and wounded two during weekly prayers, police said.

CLASHES There were also new clashes in Mahmudiya, a violent town just south of the city where nearly 60 people were killed in a mass assault by gunmen on Monday. Three police and three Iraqi soldiers were killed in today's fighting, police said.

U.S. troops killed two women and a three-year-old girl during a raid that, they said, also killed two suspected al Qaeda militants in violent Diyala province northwest of Baghdad.

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