The attack, which came as U.S. soldiers handed candy and toys to a crowd of children, killed at least 27 persons and provoked outrage from Iraqis of all political persuasions.
Al Qaeda in Iraq, the terror group led by Abu Musab Zarqawi that has taken responsibility for a wave of grisly beheadings and other horrors, quickly dissociated itself from the atrocity.
"We in al Qaeda in Iraq announce that we have no link whatsoever to the operation in New Baghdad, which took place on Wednesday," it said on the Internet.
Zarqawi, "who supervises personally all operations from planning to execution, is very keen on making sure that ordinary people are not targeted," it added without accounting for the thousands of Iraqis who have died in the terrorists' attacks.
Sheik Ahmed Abdul Ghafour al-Samarrai, a moderate cleric in the influential Association of Muslim Scholars, described the attack as a crime against "newborn children and young boys ... who went to God complaining about people's injustice."
"What is the guilt of those children? Who permitted this act?" the white-turbaned al-Samarrai asked. "The occupation that destroyed the country and turned things upside down is responsible for that."
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