A Shiite militant “special group” is believed responsible for the deadly car bombing in a Shiite neighborhood of Baghdad, a US spokesman said yesterday. He said the aim was to re-ignite sectarian violence that swept the neighborhood 18 months ago.
Iraqi officials said the death toll from the Tuesday blast in Hurriyah had risen to 63, including women and children. The Iraqi government said the horrific attack would stiffen its resolve “to defeat the terrorists and to maintain the security achievements.”
No group claimed responsibility for the blast, which occurred about 5:45pm on Tuesday on a bustling commercial street in Hurriyah, scene of some of the bloodiest sectarian slaughter in 2006. That led to speculation Sunni extremists may have been behind the attack.
But US spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Steven Stover said the command did not believe al-Qaeda in Iraq was behind the attack based on the type of vehicle and explosives used.
Instead, he said the command believed the attack was carried out by a Shiite special group led by Haydar Mehdi Khadum al-Fawadi, whom Stover described as a “murderous thug” attempting to incite violence “for his individual profit and gain.”
US and Iraqi forces have been searching for al-Fawadi for months, and his photo is displayed on checkpoints in the area.
“We believe he ordered the attack to incite [Shiite] violence against Sunnis; that his intent was to disrupt Sunni resettlement in Hurriyah in order to maintain extortion of real estate rental income to support his nefarious activities,” Stover said in an e-mail.
Several Iraqi police officials said the casualty toll stood at 63 dead and 78 wounded. They spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not supposed to release the information. Stover gave a figure of 27 dead and 40 wounded.
The blast was the deadliest attack in Baghdad since March 6, when a pair of bombs detonated in the mostly Shiite district of Karradah, killing 68 people and wounding about 120.
The US uses the term “special groups” to identify breakaway factions of the Mehdi Army, the biggest Shiite militia led by anti-US cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. The US says special groups are backed by Iran, although Stover made no mention of Iran in his statement.
He said the bomb was believed to have contained 90kg to 135kg of an undetermined explosive.
The blast shattered the relative calm in the capital since a May 11 ceasefire ended seven weeks of fighting between US and Iraqi forces and Shiite militants in the Sadr City district. Ironically, it came the same day the Iraqi parliament announced plans to move outside the US-protected Green Zone — a show of confidence that the worst of Baghdad’s violence was over.
In a statement, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Cabinet said the blast was aimed at raising the morale of extremist groups that have suffered setbacks in Baghdad, Basra and Mosul.
“This crime will not influence our determination and resolve to defeat the terrorists and to maintain the security achievements,” the statement said. “Moreover, it will increase our resolve to save the capital and the provinces from terrorists, killers, and outlaws.”
The US embassy and the US military command issued a joint statement condemning “this barbaric attack” and pledging to work with Iraqi security “to find those who perpetrated this horrific attack and help bring them to justice.”
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