Iraq conflict: At least 30 dead in attack on Sunni mosque

At least 30 people were killed when a Shia Muslim militia opened fired inside an Iraqi Sunni mosque in the country's eastern Diyala province on Friday, an Iraqi security source said.

The security source said at least 30 bodies had arrived at the hospital in the city of Baquba in Diyala province. Witnesses said the death toll from the attack was higher, but it was not immediately possible to verify the reports.

Such sectarian violence could hurt efforts by Iraq's new prime minister, moderate Shia Haider al-Abadi, to form a government that can unite Iraqis against Islamic State, the Sunni militants who have seized large parts of the country.

Ambulances transported the bodies to the town of Baquba, the main town in Diyala province, where Iranian-trained Shia militias are powerful and act with impunity.

Attacks on mosques are acutely sensitive and have in the past unleashed a deadly series of revenge killings and counter attacks in Iraq, where violence has returned to the levels of 2006-2007, the peak of a sectarian civil war.

Iraqi Shia militia forces executed 15 Sunni Muslims and then hung them from electricity poles in a public square in Baquba in July, police said.

Diyala police officials told Reuters they had provided Shia militias with names for hit lists so that suspected members of Islamic State could be tracked and executed.

Iraqi government forces and Kurdish peshmerga fighters attempted on Friday to recapture two towns in the north from Islamic State militants, security sources said.

The Kurdish forces, backed by U.S. airpower, took one district near the eastern entrance to Jalawla, 115 kilometres northeast on Baghdad, the site of weeks of clashes, the sources said.

Iraqi troops supported by Iraqi fighter planes were advancing towards the nearby town of Saadiya, the security sources said. Both towns are near the Iranian border and the semi-autonomous Kurdish region.

Sistani calls on Iraqis

Also on Friday, Iraq's most influential Shia cleric called on the country's leaders to settle their differences in a 'realistic and doable' manner and swiftly form a new government, amid a growing Sunni insurgency that threatens to break up the country.

Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani next government should be made up of candidates who care about 'the country's future and its citizens' regardless of their ethnic and religious affiliations. Al-Sistani warned that that politicians' 'demands and conditions could derail the forming of the new government.'

The cleric's remarks were relayed by his representative, Abdul-Mahdi al-Karbalaie, during prayers in the Shia holy city of Karbala.

Iraq's premier-designate, Haider al-Abadi, has until Sept. 10 to submit a list of Cabinet members to parliament for approval but deadlines have often been broken because of political wrangling in Iraq.

Since early this year, Iraq has been facing an onslaught by the extremist Islamic State group and allied Sunni militants across much of the country's north and west. The crisis has worsened since June as the militant fighters swept through new towns in the north, killing dozens of people and displacing hundreds of thousands, mainly members of the minority Christian and Yazidi religious communities.

Al-Karbalaie also called for urgent aid to be airlifted to residents of a small Shia town which has been besieged by Sunni militants in northern Iraq.

About 15,000 Shiite Turkmen in the town of Amrili have been suffering a tight siege and are lacking food and medical supplies. The town is located about 170 kilometres north of Baghdad.

Slain journalist's parents speak out

The killing this week of an American reporter has galvanized international anger at ISIS extremists and fuelled fears about the flow of foreign fighters joining their ranks.

The parents of slain journalist James Foley say they regarded an email they received from his captors last week as a hopeful sign they could negotiate with Islamic militants.

Foley's Islamic State captors had demanded $132.5 million from his parents and political concessions from Washington. Authorities say neither obliged. The militants revealed Foley's death in a video released Tuesday.

Speaking on NBC's Today John and Diane Foley from Rochester, N.H., said they had last heard from the captors via several emails in December. They say they set up a special email address and sent multiple messages to try to engage them.

John Foley said he was excited to see the latest email, even though it threatened execution. He says he had hoped they would be able to negotiate with the captors.

With files from Reuters