BAGHDAD — Iraq’s deadliest single bombing in 13 years of war has turned the Baghdad district where it took place into the centerpiece in an increasingly bitter rivalry between the country’s prime minister and its Iranian-backed Shiite militias eager to hold sway over the city’s most diverse and prosperous area.
Since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, it has been hit by seemingly endless suicide attacks, roadside bombs and even rocket shelling.
The blast, for which the Islamic State group claimed responsibility, set fires that ripped through two shopping malls, raising the death toll and horror of the attack.
Most Shiites in the district are followers of Iraq’s top religious leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, a moderate cleric who has repeatedly been critical of militiamen over their abuse of Sunni civilians while fighting the Islamic State north and west of Baghdad.
Karrada’s residents have tended to join volunteer brigades loyal to al-Sistani in response to his June 2014 call for a jihad, or holy war, against Islamic State after it blitzed across much of Iraq.
