Baghdad, Iraq – A suicide bomber triggered a ball-bearing-packed charge Sunday, killing at least 41 people at a mostly Shiite college whose main gate was left littered with blood- soaked student notebooks and papers amid the bodies.
Witnesses said a woman carried out the attack at the business-school annex to Mustansiriyah University, but Interior Ministry officials said it was investigating the reports. The school’s main campus was hit by a string of bombings last month that killed 70 people.
The attack came as a powerful Shiite militia leader bitterly complained that “car bombs continue to explode” despite an ongoing security crackdown in Baghdad and suggested he was rethinking his cooperation.
The statement issued in the name of the radical cleric Muq tada al-Sadr put increased strains on the U.S.-Iraqi security sweeps – aimed at restoring order in the capital. The cleric said any crackdown that includes American soldiers was doomed to failure.
Al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia pulled its fighters off the streets under intense government pressure to let the 12-day-old security plan proceed. But a relentless wave of Sunni attacks – six in the Baghdad area alone Sunday – has apparently tested al-Sadr’s patience as well as that of many ordinary Shiites.
A return to the streets by the Mahdi Army forces could effectively block the security effort and raise the chances of Baghdad’s falling into sectarian street battles – the apparent aim of Sunni extremists seeking any way to destroy the U.S.- backed government.
“Here we are, watching car bombs continue to explode to harvest thousands of innocent lives from our beloved people in the middle of a security plan controlled by an occupier,” said a statement read by an al-Sadr aide in Baghdad.
The statement – read to hundreds of cheering supporters – was the first public word from al-Sadr since U.S. assertions this month that he fled to neighboring Iran to avoid arrest. Al-Sadr’s aides and other loyalists insist he never left Iraq.
Shiite anger at the United States is running high since American soldiers on Friday detained the son of the most powerful Shiite political leader for nearly 12 hours after he crossed from Iran.
U.S. officials claim Shiite groups, including the Mahdi Army, receive weapons and aid from Iran. Iran denies the charges.
Besides the college blast, at least 18 people were killed – mostly in Shiite districts – in bombings and rocket attacks in the Baghdad area.
Security guards at the Mustansiriyah University annex scuffled with the bomber before the blast, witnesses said. Most of the victims were students, including at least 46 injured, said police.
The students at the college were returning to midterm exams after the Iraqi weekend.
