By Arshad Mohammed and Waleed Ibrahim
Baghdad - Iran blamed the United States on Saturday for bombings that targeted Shi'a Muslims in Iraq, but US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she saw no signs of a slide backward into sectarian war.
Clinton, stressing in a visit to Baghdad that US support would not flag as its troops prepare to withdraw from the nation they invaded in 2003, said she did not think bombs that killed 150 people in two days would rekindle widespread fighting.
The attacks in Baghdad and north-eastern Diyala province targeted in large part Shi'a Muslims, many of them pilgrims from Iran, triggering fears of reprisals against a once-dominant Sunni minority that could kick off a new cycle of killing.
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Clinton, speaking to reporters in Kuwait late on Friday before flying to Baghdad on Saturday, said it was not likely.
"I think the suicide bombings are, in an unfortunately tragic way, a signal that the rejectionists fear that Iraq is going in the right direction," she said.
Iran's top authority, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, pointed a finger at Tehran's old foes, the United States and Israel.
"The main suspects in this crime and crimes similar to that, are American security and military forces," he said in a statement read on state radio on Saturday.
He said US forces, on the pretext of fighting terrorism, had occupied an Islamic country and "killed tens of thousands of people there and increased insecurity there day after day". - Reuters
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