BAGHDAD — A senior official in Nouri al-Maliki’s government was in custody Thursday, suspected of having ties to Iranian-backed Shiite militias and plotting a June bombing that killed 10 people, including four Americans, Iraqi authorities said.
The arrest of Ali al-Lami — taken Wednesday as he left a plane arriving from Lebanon — reinforced suspicions about Tehran’s influence within the Shiite-led Iraqi government and could open wider probes into Shiite networks, including possible links to Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
Al-Lami heads a commission responsible for keeping Saddam Hussein loyalists out of government posts and has been a target of criticism from Sunni leaders who claim the government wants to limit the overall Sunni voice in political and security issues.
He was arrested by U.S. and Iraqi troops at Baghdad’s airport as he returned with his family from medical treatment in Beirut, said a member of his committee, Qaiser Watout. He was suspected of planning the June 24 bombing of a municipal building in Sadr City. Two American soldiers and two State Department employees died in the blast, along with six Iraqis.
“The man has been known to travel in and out of Iraq to neighboring nations including Iran and Lebanon, where it is believed he meets and helps run the Iranian-backed Special Groups in Iraq,” the U.S. military statement said.
In Washington, a senior U.S. military intelligence official said Thursday that the statement referred to al-Lami and that he was thought to have information that would lead investigators to people connected to “other countries,” an apparent reference to Iran and Lebanon.
U.S. military attention thinks the special groups are breakaway factions of the Mahdi Army of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who is now in Iran. Al-Sadr ordered a cease-fire in August 2007, but some factions refused to accept the order and have continued attacks.
On Thursday, al-Sadr released a statement saying his largely disbanded Mahdi Army militia would extend that cease-fire “until further notice” and that anyone who violates the truce would no longer be considered part of his militia.
Separately, the U.S. military said an American soldier died of wounds he suffered after coming under fire while patrolling northern Baghdad on Wednesday.
Another U.S. soldier was killed in a roadside bomb attack while on patrol Thursday in Baghdad, the military said.
