06 March 2007

A suicide car bomber devastated Baghdad's historic booksellers' district on Monday, killing 30 people and setting shops and cars ablaze in defiance of a US-backed crackdown on violence in the Iraqi capital. US and Iraqi forces extending a major push into the key Shiite militia haven of Sadr City met little resistance Monday. US troops arrested a leading figure in hard-line Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr's Mehdi Army and three of his aides, the militia said.

Also Monday, the Iraqi government launched an investigation into a British-Iraqi raid a day earlier on a police intelligence headquarters in southern Iraq that captured an alleged death squad leader and found prisoners with signs of torture.

The raid took place at the Iraqi National Intelligence Agency building in Basra, 550 kilometers southeast of Baghdad. Inside, troops discovered 30 prisoners, including one woman and two children, with signs of torture and abuse, the British military said in a statement. It did not elaborate.

Monday's bomb was another challenge to Maliki, who has been pleased with the early results of the three-week-old crackdown. A witness described a scene of chaos, with pools of blood on the ground and shop fronts destroyed, mangled debris littering Mutanabbi Street.

"There was so much smoke that I was vomiting," said the witness, who was in a shop on the street when the windows were blown out by the blast.

The witness, who works for Reuters, requested anonymity.

As firefighters doused flames that reached up to the third floor of some buildings, papers and book pages fluttered on the ground, some blackened, others bloody. Charred bodies lay almost unrecognizable, half-buried in the rubble.

The bomb exploded about 50 meters from the Shah Bandar cafe, a beacon of Baghdad's once thriving literary life.

"There are many shops set on fire and more than 15 cars were burned out," said the witness."

Police said the blast wounded 65 people. Three witnesses said it was a suicide car bomber.

Abu Ali, a guard at a building where the ground floor was burned out and several people killed, said he was inside when the car exploded. "I don't know where my sons are, I heard they were wounded but I haven't seen them," he said.

He later discovered one of his sons was killed.

In southern Baghdad, gunmen attacked Shiite pilgrims heading for Kerbala for the Arbaeen festival on Saturday, killing five and wounding 17 in two separate incidents, police said.

More than 1,000 US and Iraqi troops pushed into Sadr City on Sunday, searching homes for illegal weapons. On Monday, US forces arrested leading Mehdi Army figure Hussein al-Asati in the nearby Shaab district together with three aides, said Abu Firas, another senior militia official.

A source in Sadr's political movement said the group's office in Kadhemiyya, another Shiite district in northern Baghdad, was raided on Monday and a security guard detained.

Residents said US and Iraqi forces continued searching homes in the Jamila area of Sadr City on Monday.

Residents in Sadr City said checkpoints that used to be manned by Mehdi Army fighters had melted away, replaced by Iraqi Army and police who were searching every car.

Maliki said Saturday that he would reshuffle his Cabinet within two weeks, but did not say how many posts would be changed. On Monday, an adviser to the premier said 10 ministers would be replaced. They include five of the six ministers loyal to Sadr. The Sunni bloc would lose two ministries and one deputy premier. The secular group led by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi would give up two positions, the adviser said.

But the Sadr faction would take the biggest hit under the adviser's formula. Shiite ministers from other factions would remain in their jobs. - Agencies