Al-Qaida is behind a recent spate of bombings in Iraq designed to sow sectarian strife and take advantage of a drop in US troops, Defence Secretary Robert Gates said.
General Ray Odierno, commander of US forces in Iraq, and other senior officers believe "that most of the violence that we are seeing in Iraq today, these suicide bombings, are in fact the work of Al-Qaida in Iraq," Gates told a Senate hearing on Thursday.
He spoke after a wave of near-simultaneous bombings on Wednesday killed more than 50 people in mostly Shiite districts of Baghdad.
"They are clearly trying to take advantage of our draw down and particularly our drawing back away from the cities, to try and provoke a renewed round of sectarian violence," he said.
Gates was referring to a US agreement with the Iraqi government that requires US forces to withdraw from Iraq's cities by the end of June and from the whole country by the end of 2011.
"This is an orchestrated effort on the part of Al-Qaida to try and provoke the very kind of sectarian violence that nearly tore the country apart in 2006," he said.
Political decisions by Iraq's Shiite prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, were not to blame for the violence, Gates said, though he added Maliki had "problems" with those with ties to Saddam Hussein's toppled regime.
