But more than four months since the bombing and two years to the day since the handover of sovereignty by the previous US-led occupation authority to a transitional Iraqi government, sectarian violence and the rising power of militias remain two of the main obstacles to stability and security.

Rubaie said Badri, an Iraqi who was linked to the previous regime before joining Ansar Al Sunna and ultimately the Al Qaeda network, led the cell which included Abu Qudama plus four Saudi nationals and another Iraqi. Rubaie said Abu Qudama, whose real name is Yusri Naji Al Traiki, was captured “a few days ago” when he and about 15 foreign fighters tried to attack an Iraqi army checkpoint in Dhuluiyah, north of the capital. He said the 15 were killed in a firefight with Iraqi forces but Abu Qudama was arrested. “Abu Qudama confessed to the killing of hundreds of Iraqis in Ramadi, Mosul and Samarra with instructions from Haitham Al Badri,” he said.

He said Badri, who remains at large, was personally responsible for the killing of the correspondent of Dubai-based television station Al Arabiya Atwar Bahjat and two crew members who had gone to Samarra to cover the bombing of the Askari and Hadi mosque and shrine on February 22.

Meanwhile, university students and professors were on strike to protest the kidnapping of 10 Sunni Arab students from their dormitory in Baghdad two days ago by unidentified gunmen despite a massive security operation in the capital involving more than 50,000 Iraqi soldiers and policemen with US backup.

“Despite the big aura surrounding the operation, the reality of the situation points to a dangerous escalation by militias and death squads in targeting Sunnis in Baghdad,” a faction in the National Concord Front, the main Sunni-led parliamentary bloc, said in a statement.

The group called on US forces and the government to “take immediate action to stop the crimes being committed by these known militias.”

Sunnis Arabs accuse militias loyal to the Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution in Iraq party and radical cleric Moqtada Al Sadr’s movement, both key members of the dominant Shia parliamentary bloc, of operating death and kidnap squads.
Shias have also been victims of mass abductions by Sunni Arab militants as was the case in Taji north of Baghdad last week, when 64 mostly Shia employees of a government factory were kidnapped.

Abdel Ghafur Al Samarrai, president of the Sunni waqf, or religious endowment, welcomed the national reconciliation plan unveiled by Maliki on Sunday aimed at easing sectarian tensions and wooing insurgents into the political process.
But Samarrai warned that militias may scuttle this plan. “The actions of the militias are providing the excuse for others to carry arms to protect themselves thereby expanding the scope of the conflict,” he said in a statement.

Many hardliners Shias allied to Maliki have given the reconciliation initiative a lukewarm response.

The threats posed by militias were underscored by a US general on Monday. “There cannot be a bunch of extra armed groups and people with weapons operating outside the rule of law ... that is what’s going on,” Major General JD Thurman, commander of US-led coalition forces in Baghdad and three other provinces.