BAGHDAD — The U.S. military Wednesday accused a Shiite Muslim hard-liner of being responsible for a deadly truck bombing in Baghdad, saying he apparently was trying to provoke a new cycle of sectarian war between Shiites and Sunni Arabs.
The death toll rose to 63 in Tuesday's blast, which had the hallmarks of an attack by Sunni extremist groups such as Al Qaeda in Iraq. Residents of the Hurriya neighborhood had even blamed Sunni politician Adnan Dulaimi, whose guards have been accused of violence in the Iraqi capital.
But U.S. military officials said they believed the attack had been carried out by a "special group," their term for fighters who nominally belong to Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr's Mahdi Army militia or have broken away. The description, in effect, draws a distinction between the Sadr movement's moderate and more radical elements. The U.S. accuses Iran of funding, supplying and training the "special groups," which Tehran denies.
Army Lt. Col. Steven Stover, a military spokesman in Baghdad, said the Americans believed the bombing was orchestrated by fighters under the command of Haydar Mehdi Khadum Fawadi. They said Fawadi's group had seized homes that belong to displaced Sunnis and rented them out to Shiite families. Thousands of Sunnis fled Hurriya beginning in November 2006 at the height of Baghdad's civil war.
"We believe he [Fawadi] ordered the attack to incite violence against Sunnis; that his intent was to disrupt Sunni resettlement in Hurriya in order to maintain extortion of real estate rental income to support his nefarious activities," Stover said. "He killed Iraqi civilians and attempted to incite retaliatory bloodshed."
However, there was some confusion about Fawadi's identity. The military's wanted poster indicated that Fawadi also goes by the name Haidar Khadum Majidi. An Iraqi security officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Wednesday that Fawadi and Majidi are two different people. According to the officer, Fawadi reports to Majidi.
The activities of their fighters had been reduced over the last year because of the U.S. military buildup in Baghdad. A Shiite paramilitary group recruited to guard Hurriya has in part offset their influence. Even so, the officer said, Majidi toured the neighborhood last week in a convoy flanked by motorcycles as a reminder of his fighters' strength.
