A United Nations envoy said on Tuesday Iraq was sliding ”into the abyss of sectarianism” and urged Iraqi political and religious leaders to halt the violence after two car bombs in a Baghdad market killed 88 people.
Shi’ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki blamed the car bombs on followers of Saddam Hussein, whose botched execution last month angered many among his fellow minority Sunni Arabs.
The US military said Iraqi and US troops were taking a ”balanced approach” in attacking Shi’ite and Sunni Arab militant groups — apparently responding to charges by the once-dominant Sunnis that Maliki’s government has failed to crack down on Shi’ite militias loyal to some of his political allies.
About 600 members of radical young Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mehdi Army are in custody, the military said.
Cracking down on Shi’ite militias, US commanders say, is new and is key to a planned new security operation in Baghdad, backed by close to 20 000 American reinforcements. President George Bush is expected to defend sending more troops in his annual State of the Union address to Congress later on Tuesday.
A US military statement said that in the past 45 days, 52 raids had targeted the Mehdi Army, and 42 were focused on Sunni Arab insurgents. It did not say when the 600 Mehdi Army members who are awaiting prosecution were detained.
Monday’s blasts killed at least 88 and wounded 160 at a second-hand goods market in Bab al-Sharji, a busy commercial area that is home to both Sunni Arab and Shi’ite shop owners and traders in central Baghdad.
UN envoy Ashraf Qazi condemned the attacks and called on politicians and religious leaders to stop the violence and ”save the country from sliding further into the abyss of sectarianism”.
”These deplorable outrages again underscore the urgent need for all Iraqis to reject violence and together choose the path of peace and reconciliation,” Qazi said in a statement.
Last chance
Maliki has vowed to tackle all illegal groups, regardless of sect, in the new crackdown in Baghdad, which senior Shi’ite allies say may be the last chance to avert a collapse of the new state brought about by the US invasion of 2003.
Many in the US Congress, newly under the control of Bush’s Democrat opponents, reject his plan and argue the troops should start withdrawing. They are unlikely to block it, however.
The deaths of two more soldiers were announced on Tuesday.
Last week at least 70 people were killed in a double bombing outside a Baghdad university, an attack Maliki also blamed on Saddam’s supporters.
”These terrorists … imagine this will break the will of the Iraqi people and incite strife,” Maliki said in a statement.
Maliki’s critics say earlier attempts to stabilise the capital partly failed because of his reluctance to tackle the Mehdi Army. The Pentagon says the militia has now overtaken Sunni Islamist al-Qaeda as the biggest threat to peace in Iraq.
The US statement said US-backed Iraqi forces had detained 16 high level Mehdi Army militiamen in recent operations, including five in the group’s Baghdad stronghold of Sadr City, and killed one commander. — Reuters