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Iraq reviews US-freed prisoners after blasts
 
 
 
 
 
 
 AFP - Thursday, April  9
BAGHDAD (AFP) - - Iraq on Wednesday said it is reviewing the files of thousands of prisoners freed by US forces, in the wake of unrest which left seven people dead in a third straight day of attacks in Baghdad.
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The government has blamed a recent surge in violence on Al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein loyalists, while it has also been suggested that detainees released from US custody could be involved.
"The files of the released are being re-checked," Major General Qassim Atta, the spokesman for Iraqi security forces in Baghdad, told AFP.
A series of detainee releases by the US military, averaging 50 a day, kicked off on February 3 as a key part of a security deal signed last year between Washington and Baghdad that provides for a gradual return of Iraqi sovereignty.
Under the accord, prisoners must either be set free or handed over to Iraqi authorities, who make the final decision on how a case should be handled.
Thousands have already been set free under the scheme.
Brigadier General David Quantock, the US officer in charge of detainee operations, two weeks ago described about half the 13,000 prisoners still in American custody as "dangerous."
Atta also said a probe has established that six car bombs, which killed at least 34 people and wounded nearly 140 others during Monday morning rush-hour, had been orchestrated by the same attackers.
"The investigations revealed that the amount of explosives used in the cars were the same quantity," he said.
"The means of the explosion and the timers were locally made and the bombs were put in the trunk of each car. The group who committed the attacks is one group -- supporters of the previous regime who are cooperating with Al-Qaeda."
Atta's comments came as a bomb hidden in a plastic bag at a security checkpoint only 200 metres (yards) from Musa Kadhim mosque in Baghdad killed seven people and wounded 23 others, including women and children.
"The bomb was inside a bag filled with screws and nails," said a police official, asking not to be identified.
The attacker "couldn't pass one of the checkpoints to take the bomb to the nearest place to the shrine, so he left it in that place and ran away," the official said.
Yasser Abdul Hussein, a shopowner whose goods were damaged and scattered by the force of the blast, said: "Someone came and placed the bag in the street. We don't know if it was a man or a woman. They ran away immediately."
Shiite Islam's most important house of prayer in the Iraqi capital has been the scene of repeated attacks since the 2003 US-led invasion to topple Saddam triggered deadly sectarian violence.
Only hours before US President Barack Obama flew into Baghdad on Tuesday on a surprise visit to say that Iraq would soon have to defend itself, a car bomb in the same district killed eight people and wounded 20 others.
Obama met Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki at a US airbase outside the capital, and he promised to pull American troops out of the country as planned.
"We are strongly committed to an Iraq that is sovereign, stable and self-reliant," the president said.
In February, Obama announced a new strategy that will see most combat troops withdraw from Iraq by August 2010, although a force of up to 50,000 will remain until the end of the following year.
Under the military accord signed between Baghdad and Washington last November, all American troops will leave by the end of 2011.
Security has improved dramatically since 2007 when Iraqi and US forces launched offensives against Al-Qaeda militants with the help of local US-financed and trained Sahwa "Awakening" militias, also known as Sons of Iraq.
But insurgents are still able to strike with deadly results. A total of 252 Iraqis were killed in violence in March, almost the same tally as the previous month but up from January, when 191 Iraqis died in unrest.
 
 
 
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Iraqis clean the debris of their shop at the site of a bomb attack in Baghdad. Iraq on Wednesday said it is reviewing the files of thousands of prisoners freed by US forces, in the wake of unrest which left seven people dead in a third straight day of attacks in Baghdad.
 
 
 
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