BAGHDAD — A bomb exploded inside Sadr City’s district council building Tuesday, killing 10 people, including four Americans working to restore local government and services in the former Shiite militia stronghold.
Iraqi officials said it appeared to be an inside job, and suspicion fell on the headquarters’ Shiite guard force.
The blast was the second deadly attack to strike Americans promoting municipal governments in as many days.
The attack comes as U.S. military and civilian officials step up efforts to take advantage of a sharp drop in violence to promote the local administration and restore services in Sadr City and other areas. Failure to do so could allow Sunni and Shiite extremists to regain a foothold, U.S. commanders believe.
Two of the U.S. dead were soldiers, as was one of the wounded, the military said. U.S. Embassy spokeswoman Mirembe Nantongo said the dead American civilians included one State Department and one Defense Department employee.
The State Department identified one of the slain Americans as Steven L. Farley of Guthrie, Okla. He was believed to be the first member of a provincial reconstruction team to be killed in Iraq. The U.S. aid teams have been dispatched to teach, coach and mentor Iraqis and help them with reconstruction projects.
An Italian of Iraqi origin who was working as an interpreter for the Americans also was killed, according to the Italian Foreign Ministry.
Five Iraqi civilians also died, the U.S. military said. But an Iraqi Interior Ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said four Iraqi civilians were killed and 10 others wounded. The discrepancy could not immediately be reconciled.
The district council headquarters is located in a heavily guarded southern section of Sadr City that is surrounded by a U.S.-built concrete wall and is largely controlled by U.S. and Iraqi troops.
U.S. troops captured a suspect who was trying to flee the scene, the military said, claiming he tested positive for explosives residue. The military blamed the attack on “special groups criminals,” a term it uses for Shiite militiamen refusing to follow a cease-fire order by anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
A witness said the Americans rounded up all the Iraqi guards at the building immediately after the explosion.
An initial investigation indicated the explosion was an inside job and that the bomb was likely planted Monday to avoid the tightened security that accompanies the weekly Tuesday meetings, an Interior Ministry official said.
The explosion occurred a day after a suspected Sunni gunman opened fire on U.S. soldiers attending a municipal council meeting in Madain, about 14 miles southeast of Baghdad, killing two of the American troops and wounding three others. An interpreter also was killed in that attack.
