American intelligence agents investigating the bombing of a religious shrine in this holy Shi’ite city are poring over three computers seized from bombing suspects, the commander of US Marines in Najaf said yesterday. The bombing has increased instability in Iraq and already prompted armed Islamic militias to move into a perceived security vacuum. Even as the US military took custody of six suspects in the bombing, a militia aligned with slain cleric Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim attacked a former Ba’ath Party boss, torching his home and taking him prisoner in what seemed to be the first revenge attack after the bombing Friday that killed Hakim and at least 84 other people at the Shrine of Imam Ali. A three-member advance FBI team was traveling to Najaf yesterday evening at the invitation of the local governor. Other US intelligence agencies already were interrogating suspects and examining the seized computers. The three computers were seized along with four people at a house in Najaf by Iraqi police and turned over to the US military. Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Woodbridge, commander of the First Battalion of the Seventh Marines in Najaf, said the computers had been given to an “other governmental agency,” the military’s terminology for a group of agencies including the National Security Agency, CIA, and FBI. Full Story
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