Eighty bullet-ridden corpses were brought to the Baghdad morgue between Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning, the deputy director of the morgue, Doctor Kais Mohammed, told AFP.

"I've only been able to carry out autopsies on 25 of them," he said, adding that all had been shot. The bodies, which had been dumped in Baghdad and its suburbs, could not immediately be identified.

Another 47 bodies of men shot to death were discovered along with 10 burned out cars alongside a road near Nahrawan, southeast of Baghdad, police said.

The corpses were found near a brick factory and it was not immediately known if the victims were workers from the factory.

Iraq has already placed its security forces on high alert and cancelled all leave. The night curfew in Baghdad was brought forward from 11:00 pm to 8:00 pm on Wednesday.

The upsurge in killings came after suspected Al-Qaeda linked militants Wednesday morning bombed the 1,000-year-old Imam Ali al-Hadi mausoleum, one of the countries' main Shiite shrines, in the town of Samarra, north of Baghdad.

Early Thursday the police also reported finding the bodies of three Iraqi journalists working for Dubai-based Arabiya satellite television who were kidnapped near Samarra Wednesday evening while reporting on the shrine bombing.

"The bodies of the presenter Atwar Bahjat, of cameraman Adnan Abdallah and of soundman Khaled Mohsen were found early this morning some 15 kilometres (10 miles) north of Samarra," police said.

In other violence, at least 12 people were killed in a powerful roadside bomb attack in Baquba, 60 kilometers (35 miles) northeast of Baghdad, of which eight were Iraqi army soldiers and four other civilians, police said, adding 20 others were wounded.

The shrine bombing prompted global condemnation and appeals for calm, but large-scale demonstrations turned violent with attacks on dozens of Sunni mosques nationwide.

One Sunni was also killed and two wounded in a drive by shooting outside a Sunni mosque in Baquba, police said. On Wednesday, at least six Sunnis were killed in sectarian attacks in Baghdad where one Sunni mosque was set ablaze and others fired upon.

Gunmen also stormed a prison in the southern port city of Basra and lynched 10 suspected Sunni militants. Police said two of those killed were from Egypt, two from Tunisia, one from Saudi Arabia, one from Libya, one from Turkey and four were Iraqis.

Two others were killed in Basra in an attack on offices of a Sunni political party.

The bomb attack on the Samarra shrine destroyed the dome of one of the Shiite Islam's holiest shrines, where the Shiites buried two of their best known imams in the 9th century AD.

Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari has proclaimed three days of national mourning and decreed that Thursday would be a public holiday.

Jaafari also called on Iraqis to denounce sectarian attacks and "close the road to those who want to undermine national unity".

"They are trying to push us into killing one another," the government said in a statement.

The leader of the Sunni-based Islamic Party, Tareq al-Hashimi, appealed on Shiite religious leaders to control Shiite demonstrations which mushroomed around the country.

"We ask the Marjaiya (Shiite grand ayatollahs) to intervene before it is too late," he told reporters.

Iraq's top Shiite religious authority, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, has urged his community to remain calm and has forbidden revenge attacks.

But at least 2,000 Shiite demonstrators took to the streets of Kut, 175 kilometres (110 miles) southeast of the capital, Thursday morning shouting "vengeance, vengeance".

A number of Shiite leaders also called for the faithful to rally Friday in Samarra for prayers and a mass demonstration and the government has sent army reinforcements to the town.

The Samarra bombing, carried out by men dressed in police commando uniforms, bore the hallmarks of supporters of Al-Qaeda's Iraq frontman Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who has declared war on the country's Shiites.

Police said the three journalists were kidnapped and killed after they went to report on Wednesday's attack, which destroyed the golden dome of the al-Askari shrine.

Iraq has seen a wave of violence following the attack on the shrine, which is one of Shia Islam's holiest sites.

"We are facing a major conspiracy that is targeting Iraq's unity," President Jalal Talabani said.

"We should all stand hand in hand to prevent the danger of a civil war."

Gunmen

The journalists for the Dubai-based al-Arabiya TV station had gone to Samarra to report on the bombing and the angry protests that followed.

Their bodies were found early on Thursday about 15km (10 miles) north of the city, police said.

The deaths come amid a wave of anger over the bombing.

Gunmen opened fire on a Sunni mosque in the town of Baquba on Thursday, killing one person and wounding two, police said.

Dozens of Sunni mosques have been attacked and at least 11 people were killed on after gunmen masquerading as police abducted them from a Basra jail on Wednesday.

Police say the victims in the mainly Shia city were suspected Sunni militants, including several foreigners.

Their bodies were later found in the city, amid reports that they had been tortured before being shot.

The killings followed clashes between followers of firebrand Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and Sunnis.

Iraqi political and religious leaders have all called for calm.

But a spokesman for Iraq's top Shia cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani said the anger may be hard to contain.

"You wouldn't expect an abrupt or sudden calm, because there are some people whose reaction you can't control," London-based spokesman Fadel Bahar al-Eloum told the BBC.

A member of the al-Arabiya TV team who escaped described how two gunmen showed up as they stood in a crowd of Iraqis.

They dragged Bahjat and her colleagues away and shot them.

Their bodies were found on the outskirts of Samarra, an area racked by sectarian violence since Wednesday's explosion that destroyed the revered Shia Muslim al-Askari shrine.

A spokesman for al-Arabiya said Bahjat, an Iraqi citizen, was a Sunni Muslim. She was one of very few women to work as frontline conflict reporters for Arabic television.

The 26-year-old had only recently moved to Saudi-owned al-Arabiya TV from the rival Qatari-owned station al-Jazeera.

The Qatari station has been heavily criticised by US military and political leaders for its coverage in Iraq, including suggestions that correspondents had prior knowledge of insurgency attacks - a charge denied by al-Jazeera.

Panic

Al-Arabiya said it lost contact with its team at 1500 GMT, shortly after nightfall. The three bullet-ridden bodies were found the following morning.

Atwar Bahjat filing a report on Wednesday evening, shortly before her murder
Her last report was replayed by al-Arabiya on Thursday morning
The station has been showing the last report Bahjat filed - in fading light beside a road outside Samarra, close to where the team was kidnapped.

They had been about to return to base in the northern city of Kirkuk when two gunmen drove up in a pick-up truck, al-Arabiya correspondent Ahmed al-Saleh reported on the morning news programme.

"The two gunmen started firing their machine-guns in the air, which caused the people to panic and to run away," Saleh said.

"One of them started shouting 'We want the anchorwoman'. Atwar was in the news van and shouted to the crowd to help her.

"The crew tried to speak to the gunmen, but they snatched them and took them an unknown location."

Deadly conflict

The correspondent described Bahjat as a "victim of truth; she loved her country and died because of her impartiality."

The channel named the other dead team members as cameraman Adnan Khairallah and soundman Khaled Mohsen, who both worked for the local Wassan production company.

At least eight employees of al-Arabiya have died in Iraq since the 2003 US-led invasion, some of them killed by US forces and others by suspected militants.

They are among more than 60 journalists who have fallen in the conflict, making Iraq one of the most deadly and hard-to-cover stories.

In September 2004, al-Arabiya's Mazen al-Tumeizi was killed on camera in Baghdad when a US helicopter opened fire to destroy an abandoned US army vehicle that had been hit by an insurgency attack.

Major General Rick Lynch, spokesman for the coalition forces in Iraq, said the military had recorded attacks on seven Sunni mosques since the bombing of the revered Shiite shrine in Samarra on Wednesday.

"As of now seven attacks on mosques across Iraq have taken place that resulted in damage to mosques, two Sunni imams (prayer leaders) and one Sunni sheikh were murdered," Lynch told reporters, playing down the sectarian strife.

"Some drive-by shootings against mosques have been reported ... that's where we are. So we are not seeing civil war igniting in Iraq. We are not seeing 77, 80, 100 mosques damaged in Iraq. We are not seeing death on the streets."

But more than 80 bodies of people who had been shot dead were brought to Baghdad's morgue between Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning, according to its deputy director.

In addition, 47 workers from a brick factory were murdered Thursday on the outskirts of the capital, police said.

Iraqi security officials and Sunni leaders said some 30 Sunni mosques were attacked Wednesday following the bombing of the 1,000-year-old Imam Ali al-Hadi mausoleum, a revered Shiite shrine, in the northern town of Samarra.

Lynch said a total of 20 peaceful demonstrations had taken place across Iraq over the past 36 hours, while admitting "there were some demonstrations that were violent."

"We are seeing a confident Iraqi government using capable security forces to calm the storm that was inflammated by a horrendous terrorist attack yesterday against the golden mosque," Lynch added.

He confirmed that all Iraqi security forces were on alert, and "everybody who was on leave has been called back". An overnight curfew has also been extended in Baghdad and Samarra, he said.

Speaking to a crowd of thousands on a tour of southwestern Iran, the president referred to the destruction of the Askariya mosque dome in Samarra on Wednesday, which the Iraqi government has blamed on insurgents.

"They invade the shrine and bomb there because they oppose God and justice," Ahmadinejad said, referring to the U.S.-led multinational forces in Iraq.

"These passive activities are the acts of a group of defeated Zionists and occupiers who intended to hit our emotions," he said in a speech that was broadcast on state television. Addressing the United States, he added: "You have to know that such an act will not save you from the anger of Muslim nations."

The bombing set off a string of sectarian attacks in Iraq. Angry crowds thronged the streets, militiamen attacked Sunni mosques and at least 19 people were killed.

Bulgaria pulled its 400-strong military contingent out of Iraq in December, having lost 13 troops and six civilians since joining US-led forces in 2003.

Strong public opposition had built up to involvement in the Iraq war.

Bulgaria's parliament, which has to endorse any troop deployments, voted by 151 to 15 to approve the new mission.

The Bulgarian unit will be under US control and is expected to remain in Iraq for a year.

The move opens the way for Bulgaria's return to the multinational forces in Iraq, following its military withdrawal in December.

Fellow European nations Bulgaria, Hungary and Ukraine all opted to pull out their forces last year.

But Poland's newly elected conservative government decided in December to extend its military deployment in Iraq until the end of 2006.