Unidentified gunmen on Wednesday blew up three Sunni mosques in two towns north of Hilla City, some100 km south of Baghdad, a local police source said.

"The Osama Ibn Zayd and Abdullah al-Juburi mosques in al-Askandariya, 50 km north of Hilla, were blown up by explosive charges," the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

"The third mosque was attacked in the same way in the town of Jebla, 40 km north of Hilla," the source said, adding that the attacks caused no human casualties.

The source said that the attacks apparently came as retaliation to a truck bombing that devastated the Khillani mosque in central Baghdad on Tuesday and killed some 75 people and wounding 130 others.

Last week unknown insurgents attacked a revered Shiite shrine in the city of Samarra, some 120 km north of Baghdad.

(Xinhua News Agency June 21, 2007)