BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The investigating officer in the Haditha case has recommended that the Marine at the center of the incident not be tried for murder, the Pentagon said on Thursday. art.iraq.thurs.01.ap.jpg
U.S. troops inspect vehicles destroyed in a bombing Wednesday that wounded the Polish ambassador.
The recommendation is that Sgt. Frank Wuterich face trial for lesser charges of negligent homicide.
The case involved allegations that Marines killed up to two dozen Iraqi civilians in the town of Haditha in November 2005.
A military judge at Camp Pendleton will make the final decision. But if this recommendation is accepted, it means no one in the Haditha case will be tried for murder.
Meanwhile, an al Qaeda bag man smuggled $100 million into Iraq during the past few months to finance terrorist operations, according to the U.S. military.
The unidentified man, arrested Tuesday near Baghdad, allegedly employs 40 to 50 extremists at $3,000 per job for bomb attacks against coalition forces, using money from supporters outside Iraq, the military said.
"The extremist financier is suspected of traveling to foreign countries to acquire financial support for terrorist activities and is suspected of supplying more than $50,000 to al Qaeda each month," the military said.
The suspect, captured during a coalition raid in Kindi, operates a network of financing cells across Iraq, the military said.
"He is believed to have received $100 million this summer from terrorist supporters who cross the Iraq border illegally or fly into Iraq from Italy, Syria and Egypt," the military said.
The $100 million figure is based on intelligence report estimates over several months, said Lt. Cmdr. Rudy Burwell, a spokesman for Multi-National Corps-Iraq.
The man is also accused of purchasing some of the explosives and weapons used in the 2006 attack on Samarra's al-Askariya mosque, also known as the Golden Mosque, and a second attack on it in 2007. Don't Miss
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The attacks heightened sectarian tensions between Sunni and Shiite Muslims.
During a separate operation in Radwaniya Tuesday, Iraqi forces detained a suspected al Qaeda platoon leader who commands 15 men in attacks on Iraqi and coalition forces with roadside bombs and direct assaults, the military said.
Meanwhile, an Iraqi Ministry of Information spokesman said Thursday that Iraq has entered into a "substantial" deal with China to purchase weapons and light military equipment for its police forces, because the Asian nation promised the fastest delivery.
Brig. Gen. Abdul Kareem Khalaf told CNN he was unable to confirm that his country was spending $100 million for the items, a number reported in Thursday's editions of The Washington Post, which quoted Iraqi President Jalal Talabani.
Khalaf said there have been delivery delays from other countries, including the United States, and adequately arming police forces is a priority in Iraq's goal to provide its own security. In the United States, there are several layers of review before military equipment sales are approved.
Khalaf said the deal was made last June during a visit to China by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and Minister of Interior Jawad al-Bolani, whose department is in charge of policing and border control.
"Iraq is a sovereign country and it is their right to purchase what they need from whatever country they want," said U.S. Lt. Col. Dan Williams, with the Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq. "Such payments come from their own money."
Insurgents on Thursday targeted a mayor and a leader of a group fighting al Qaeda in separate roadside bombing attacks, killing one and critically wounding the other, Iraqi officials said.
A roadside bomb killed Abbas Hamza Asal al-Khafaji, the mayor of Iskandariya, 25 miles (40 kilometers) south of Baghdad, and four of his escorts, a Babil provincial official told CNN.
Earlier in the day, Mu'awiya Jbara, the head of the Salaheddin Awakening Council, was critically wounded in a similar assassination attempt outside Samarra, the province's deputy governor said. The roadside bombing killed three of his bodyguards, the deputy governor said.
The Salaheddin Awakening Council, formed in May, is an alliance of Sunni tribes aligned against al Qaeda in Sunni provinces.
Shortly after its formation, gunmen bombed the home of one of the council's leaders, Sheik Khalil Ibrahim Salem al-Jubouri, and kidnapped four of his sons.
The attack comes less than a month after Sheikh Abdul Sattar Abu Reesha, head of the Anbar Salvation Council, also known as Anbar Awakening, was assassinated in Ramadi. Al Qaeda later claimed responsibility.
In other attacks Thursday:
# A roadside bomb targeted a U.S. convoy in the northeastern region of Hay Ur, wounding six Iraqi civilians, an Interior Ministry official said. The convoy escaped harm.
# A roadside bomb killed one Iraqi and wounded four others in the northern Waziriya neighborhood. advertisement
# A car bomb near a gas station killed two and wounded 11 in the eastern Baghdad neighborhood of Camp Sara.
# A car bomb in the southeastern Zafaraniya neighborhood killed four and wounded eight. E-mail to a friend E-mail to a friend
CNN's Jamie McIntyre, Saad Abedine and Jomana Karadsheh contributed to this report.
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