Shiites want the help of Sadr’s militia

BAGHDAD — Hundreds of Shiite Muslims, beating their chests in mourning, accompanied 17 coffins through Baghdad’s main Shiite district Monday, demanding that militiamen be allowed to protect them after a wave of attacks on pilgrims.

“Despite the heavy security presence in Baghdad, we are seeing the terror and bombings escalate and more innocents being killed,” said a man who identified himself by a traditional nickname, Abu Fatima Sadi. “When the Al Mahdi army was providing protection, there were no violations.”

This year, the Al Mahdi militia, led by radical anti-American cleric Muqtada Sadr, held back from protecting millions of Shiite pilgrims making their way to the holy city of Karbala for weekend religious rites. The move came after intense pressure by the Shiite-led government to give a U.S.-Iraqi security plan a chance to succeed.

Attacks against Iraq’s Shiite majority, however, have persisted despite the month-old crackdown, intended to clear the capital of sectarian fighters and anti-U.S. insurgents.

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Attacks by Sunnis

More than 220 people were killed in the last week as Sunni Arab militants unleashed suicide bombers and gunfire on the Shiite pilgrims who converged in Karbala to mark the death of Imam Hussein, a grandson of the prophet Muhammad.

Iraqi officials have reported a modest drop in recent weeks in the number of execution-style killings, which are considered to be a signature of the Al Mahdi militia.

Police recovered 11 bodies in Baghdad on Monday. Before the security plan was launched Feb. 13, the number often exceeded 30 a day.

But bomb blasts, mortar fire and other attacks have persisted, and at least 13 Iraqis were reported killed and dozens injured Monday. The U.S. military also announced the deaths of three U.S. personnel the previous day.

Some of the Shiite mourners at Monday’s funeral complained that the decision to rein in the militiamen left them exposed to Sunni militants intent on reigniting sectarian fighting.

“This plan is not effective and has no results to show so far,” said a man who gave his name as Abu Zahara Ghrayji. “You can see the evidence of the increasing bombings and terror every day.”

He demanded that police work with the militiamen to protect Shiites at major gatherings.

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Hands-off approach

U.S. officials have left the issue of cooperation with the militia to the Iraqi government. Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, seemed to suggest the militia could have a policing role when he told reporters last week that many countries have auxiliary police forces.

He said the challenge was to separate individuals who had committed abuses from those who wanted to serve “in a positive way

Mourners went to the morgue early Monday to collect the bodies of 17 Shiite pilgrims who were among those slain the previous day when a suicide bomber rammed a car packed with explosives into a flatbed truck that was carrying them home from Karbala.

The death toll from the attack rose to 34 Monday after several victims died in hospitals.

Weeping relatives and neighbors placed the bodies in plain wooden caskets, draped them with the Iraqi flag, and lifted them on top of minivans for the drive to Sadr City, a vast slum that is a stronghold of the Al Mahdi militia.

The coffins first were taken to relatives’ homes. Several hundred mourners, protected by police vehicles, then accompanied them to Sadr’s office and on to the cemetery.

As they walked, the mourners beat their chests and chanted, “There is no god but God.” One man perched on top of a coffin, holding the picture of one of the dead and slapping his forehead with grief.

U.S. and Iraqi forces said they were making progress in tracking down those responsible for recent attacks.

Seven suspects were captured in an early-morning raid Monday in Hillah, where two suicide bombers killed more than 100 pilgrims last week, U.S. and Iraqi officials said.

A vehicle that was believed to have been used to drop off the attackers was recovered at the site of the raid, an ice cream factory, along with weapons, money and extremist literature, the Iraqis said.

U.S.-led forces captured 22 other suspects during raids nationwide Monday, the military said.

U.S. forces will spread out in the coming weeks to communities on Baghdad’s fringes, where insurgents are believed to have set up car-bomb-making factories, Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV said at a news briefing Monday.

The U.S. personnel deaths Sunday included a soldier who was killed in a roadside bombing southwest of the capital, the military said.

A Marine was killed in combat in Al Anbar province, a center of the Sunni Arab insurgency west of the capital.

Another soldier assigned to the Multinational Division in Baghdad died of unspecified “non-battle-related” causes Sunday.

At least 3,195 U.S. personnel have been killed in Iraq since the start of the war in 2003, according to icasualties.org.

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Tribunal targets Iran group

In other developments, the chief prosecutor of the Iraqi High Tribunal said he planned to bring charges against members of an exiled Iranian opposition group for alleged crimes against humanity.

Prosecutor Jaafar Mousawi said there was evidence suggesting the Mujahedin Khalq helped the late leader Saddam Hussein suppress Shiites and Kurds after a 1991 uprising at the close of the Persian Gulf War. The group, which once sought to overthrow Tehran’s leaders from bases set up in Hussein’s Iraq, denies the allegations.

The Iraqi High Tribunal was set up to prosecute genocide and crimes against humanity committed during Hussein’s rule. The court sentenced Hussein to hang last year for the killings of 148 Shiite Muslims after an assassination attempt against him in 1982.

He was hanged Dec. 30.

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Times staff writers Tina Susman and Suhail Ahmad in Baghdad, and special correspondents in Baghdad, Hillah and Kirkuk contributed to this report.