US blames Shiite group for blast

Baghdad: US forces on Wednesday blamed a rogue Shiite militia group seeking to stir up sectarian violence for a devastating truck bombing that killed 63 people in Baghdad.

The US military said intelligence information showed Tuesday's attack in a predominantly Shiite district, the deadliest in the Iraqi capital in more than three months, was carried out by a "special groups cell".

That is military jargon for rogue elements of Shiite cleric Moqtada Al Sadr's Mehdi Army. The US military says the special groups receive weapons, training and funding from neighbouring Iran, a charge Tehran denies.

Iraqi police said another 75 people were wounded in the bombing in a crowded market area of northwestern Baghdad. Four children and five women were among the dead.

The blast in the Al Hurriya neighbourhood set three buildings ablaze and destroyed a marketplace, police said.

The US military said it believed the bombers used a truck packed with 90 to 135 kg of explosives.

The attack, just weeks after the US military announced violence in Iraq had dropped to a four-year low, shattered weeks of relative calm in the Iraqi capital.

Trucks and diggers were busy yesterday removing rubble from the bomb site. Smoke hung in the air.

The marketplace was full of people, some still searching for missing relatives among the debris and garbage. "Our intelligence, corroborated through multiple sources, is this atrocity was committed by a special groups cell," a US military statement said.

The military said it believed the attack was intended to incite Shiite violence against Sunni Arabs and specifically to disrupt resettlement of Sunni Arabs in the Al Hurriya area.