BAGHDAD, Iraq – The U.S. military said Wednesday it was holding the administrator of a psychiatric hospital on suspicion he may have helped insurgents find mentally disabled women to carry bombs that devastated two Baghdad markets earlier this month.
The blasts Feb. 1, which Iraqi officials said killed 99 people, marked the worst violence to hit the capital since a buildup of U.S. troops was completed last July. The day after the attacks, U.S. and Iraqi officials showed photographs of the heads of two women, who they said had been used to unwittingly carry explosives that were detonated by remote control in the markets.
According to military officials, both women were mentally disabled and unaware of what they were doing.
At a news conference, U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Greg Smith said U.S. forces detained the man Sunday at the al-Rashad psychiatric hospital “in connection with the possible exploitation of mentally impaired women” by insurgents from Al-Qaida in Iraq.
Smith said the hospital administrator was being questioned to determine if he had provided information to Al-Qaida in Iraq about patients at al-Rashad or other medical facilities.
He did not name the administrator, but a hospital worker, and a spokesman for the Ministry of Health, identified him as Sahi Aboob al-Maliki. They, and Smith, said Maliki had only worked at the hospital for a couple of weeks.
The hospital worker and a Sadr City pharmacist who knows Maliki expressed surprise that he would be suspected of involvement in insurgent activity.
The pharmacist, Mohammed Ali Khadem, described Maliki as a popular doctor who had run a private clinic near Sadr City for more than 10 years.
“He has a calm personality, and throughout the years he has built a very good reputation for himself here in Sadr City,” said Khadem, adding that Maliki was not known to be politically active.
Maliki was described as both a pediatrician and a psychiatrist by Iraqi health officials. His specialty remained unclear.
At the al-Rashad facility, the hospital worker, who asked not to be named, said U.S. forces raided al-Rashad at about 1:30 p.m. local time Sunday, rifling through cabinets and offices and leaving at about 4 p.m. with the doctor. Since then, he said U.S. forces had returned several times. The employee estimated Maliki is in his mid-50s.
“We might understand his detention if they accused him of stealing something, but this accusation is unbelievable,” said the worker, insisting that the Shiite doctor would not have helped Sunni Muslim insurgents. “That doesn’t make sense.”
He said Maliki had been an administrator at Al-Sadr General Hospital in Baghdad before being asked to take over at al-Rashad, which was left without a director after the last one was killed by insurgents in December. That director had replaced yet another one, who left Baghdad after being kidnapped and held for ransom. He was freed after his family paid about $40,000, the hospital employee said.
Insurgents have assassinated hundreds of doctors, professors and other educated professionals whom they consider obstacles to their efforts to establish a strict Islamic state. Lately, the U.S. military says, insurgents have stepped up the use of bombings utilizing women, who are less frequently searched for explosives and who can easily hide bombs beneath the flowing abayas that many wear.
On Wednesday, police in Babil province south of Baghdad said a woman wearing an explosive vest had tried to enter a Shiite shrine. A policewoman searching females detected the bomb.