Blast at revered Shi'ite shrine in Iraq's Samarra

BAGHDAD, June 13 (Reuters) An explosion today hit a revered Shi'ite shrine in the Iraqi city of Samarra that had been badly damaged in February 2006, senior Shi'ite officials and one witness said.

The witness said two minarets at Samarra's Golden Mosque had been damaged. The attack on the mosque last year sparked a wave of sectarian violence in Iraq that has killed tens of thousands of people.

''The explosion targeted the two golden minarets. They have been damaged ... This is a criminal act which aims at creating sectarian strife,'' Saleh al-Haidari, the head of the Shi'ite endowment in Iraq, a major religious body, told Reuters.

Iraq's government has previously blamed Sunni Islamist al Qaeda for the attack on the shrine in February 2006, when gunmen laid charges inside the shrine that completely destroyed its golden dome. That blast did not damage the minarets.

The bombing last year prompted a wave of revenge attacks against Sunni Arabs by Shi'ite militia death squads, mostly in Baghdad.

The Golden Mosque is one of the most important Shi'ite shrines in Iraq.

REUTERS PJ RK1332