Najaf, Iraq ? About 400,000 mourners took to the streets Tuesday, flailing their backs and pounding their chests in anguish at the funeral of a leading Shiite cleric assassinated in a car bomb attack. In Baghdad, another car bomb exploded outside police headquarters, killing one and wounding 13.

In an angry funeral oration, the cleric’s brother blamed the U.S. occupation forces for the lax security that led to the attack at Iraq’s most sacred Shiite mosque. He raged against the American troops and demanded they leave Iraq.

Men clad in white robes and dark uniforms brandishing Kalashnikov rifles stood guard along the roof of the gold-domed Imam Ali mosque, where Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim was killed Friday in the bloodiest attack since the fall of Saddam Hussein. Accounts of the death toll ranged from more than 80 to more than 120.

“The occupation force is primarily responsible for the pure blood that was spilled in holy Najaf, the blood of al-Hakim and the faithful group that was present near the mosque,” said Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim, the ayatollah’s brother and a member of the U.S.-picked Governing Council.

L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. civilian administrator for Iraq, told a Baghdad news conference that U.S. occupation authorities would push the new Iraqi Cabinet to assume governing duties and wanted to quickly train Iraqis to take over security.

He insisted there was no rift between the coalition and the Governing Council.

“I completely agree with the argument that we should find ways quickly to give Iraq and Iraqis more responsibility for security,” he said. “They (the Governing Council) have encouraged us to do what we were already doing, which is putting Iraqis … in Iraqi security.”

Al-Hakim has said he would not resign from the Governing Council but spoke with great anger about the American military’s inability to pacify the country.

“This force is primarily responsible for all this blood and the blood that is shed all over Iraq every day,” he said, voicing the frustrations of Iraqis throughout the country. The criticism could signal an open fissure in the historically cooperative relationship between the Shiites and the U.S.-led civilian and military occupation.

An ocean of Shiite Muslim women in Najaf follows the ceremonial coffin of the leader of the supreme council for the Islamic revolution in Iraq, Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim. The funeral procession for the Shiite leader arrived Tuesday at the mosque.

“Iraq must not remain occupied and the occupation must leave so that we can build Iraq as God wants us to do,” he said.

Earlier, the slain ayatollah’s son warned that the country had entered a dangerous new era.

“Our injured Iraq is facing great and dangerous challenges in which one requires strength,” Mohammed Hussein Mohammed Saeed al-Hakim said at one stop in the funeral march — the third day of a procession that began in Baghdad and pushed south to Najaf.

A senior Iraqi police official told The Associated Press there were nine key suspects in the bombing in custody — two Saudis, one Palestinian carrying a Jordanian passport and six Iraqis. All nine admitted ties to the al-Qaida terror network, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

As Tuesday’s funeral was about to begin, the car bomb exploded outside police headquarters in Baghdad, killing one officer and wounding 13 others in the latest attack apparently targeting Iraqis working with the American-led occupation. An unknown number of bystanders also were wounded.

Acting police chief Hassan al-Obeidi, who has offices in the headquarters building and is closely associated with the occupation authority, was not harmed. There were U.S. soldiers in the nearby Baghdad police academy, but they also were unharmed.

Also Tuesday, a Black Hawk helicopter crashed south of Baghdad, killing one U.S. soldier and injuring a second in a “nonhostile” incident, U.S. military spokesman Spc. Anthony Reinoso said.