THE maverick Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has raised sectarian tension in Iraq by vowing vengeance against Sunnis he blames for the stampede that killed almost 1,000 pilgrims last week in Baghdad.

While more moderate clerics have avoided blaming Sunni insurgents for provoking the tragedy, al-Sadr claimed in a message from his mosque in al-Kufa, near Najaf, that civil war was already underway.

The interior ministry has said 953 Shi’ite worshippers died last Wednesday, trampled underfoot and drowned in the Tigris river after they tumbled from the narrow al-Aima bridge on their way towards the shrine of Moussa al- Kadhim, an 8th-century imam. An earlier exchange of mortar fire had made the crowd nervous, but pandemonium broke out when rumours spread that there were Sunni suicide bombers in their midst.

In a statement to newspapers al-Sadr identified “Ba’athists and Saddamists” and “fanatic sectarians” as likely culprits. “The number of dead is sufficient for us to prove that this incident was organised,” he said. “You should ask about the dirty hands who spilt all this blood.”

In a sermon later, the cleric promised further resistance to the American-led coalition, which he said had failed to prevent tensions between the Sunni minority and the Shi’ites from escalating.

“We condemn the view that the occupation’s existence is beneficial because if it ended there would be sectarian war — as if sectarian war has not already begun,” he said. It was al-Sadr’s first sermon in the mosque for more than a year, and appeared to hint that his uneasy truce with the coalition forces may be over. America and Britain are desperate to see Iraq’s political evolution continue, and hope the draft constitution can be approved in a referendum next month.

Al-Sadr told his supporters they should boycott the poll until an inquiry into the disaster identifies those responsible. “We need to know who the criminals are, who is behind them,” he said. “And we will punish them.”

In the worsening atmosphere a march aimed at bringing the two communities together failed to go ahead. Sunni and Shi’ite worshippers arrived at Baghdad’s large Um al-Qura mosque to pray together but then went their separate ways.

Instead of a peaceful demonstration, the three-day period of mourning, which ended yesterday, was marked by more violence in Baghdad and elsewhere in the country.

Although many accounts have emerged of Sunnis helping to rescue Shi’ites, the outbursts of al-Sadr and other radicals are encouraging suspicion rather than reconciliation.

Memories of Sunni neighbours throwing themselves into the Tigris to help rescue drowning Shi’ites were fading rapidly. “Whoever told you that they helped us was a liar,” said Ahmed Chasib, a Shi’ite burying his wife.

Government sources, meanwhile, complained that the American military were partly to blame for the tragedy by failing to remove blast barriers from the bridge, which they said made it a bottleneck.

“The first mistake was the closure of all other bridges and the opening of just the smallest one,” said a defence ministry official. He said Brigadier Abdul Jalel Khalaf, commander of the Iraqi army’s 1st brigade, had asked the Americans to remove the concrete barriers, but they had refused.

The same official also accused the Americans of preventing ambulances passing through roadblocks to reach the scene. “The Americans took a very bad initiative,” he said. “They prevented the ambulances entering the area — it was a reason why so many died without the help of anyone.” Coalition authorities declined comment on the allegations.

Additional reporting: Haider Kadhum

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