At least 50 people have been killed and 138 others wounded in suicide bombings in a mosque in northern Baghdad on Friday, police said.

Three suicide bombings hit Buratha, a Shiite mosque located in the al-Ataifya district in northern Baghdad, an Interior Ministry source told Xinhua earlier.

"The suicide bombers blew up simultaneously at around 3:30 p.m. (1130 GMT) after the worshippers finished their Friday prayers and were about to leave the mosque," the source said.

The targeted mosque belongs to the Superior Council of Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), which is the most powerful party inside dominating Shiite Alliance of Iraq's parliament.

The Baghdad provincial council was calling on people to donate blood in the hospital, the local Iraqia television reported.

Friday's attack came one day after a car bomb blew up near the sacred Shiite Iman Ali shrine in Najaf, a holy city of some 160 km south of Baghdad, killing at least 10 and wounding over 40 others.

Sectarian violence inflamed after the bombing of a Shiite holy shrine in Samarra on Feb. 22, raising fears that reprisals could pitch Iraqi toward civil war.

Source: Xinhua