Najaf, Iraq ? Militiamen carrying assault rifles and wearing arm bands of a once-outlawed Islamic group patrolled in the holy city of Najaf on Saturday, a week after a key Shiite cleric was killed in a bombing followers blamed on the failure of U.S. security efforts.

In a major — if temporary — policy shift, the top U.S. civilian administrator in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, said the armed Iraqis had the blessing of the American occupation force.

“The militias … on the streets of Najaf … were there with the full authority of the Coalition Provisional Authority and in full cooperation with the coalition forces. That is to say, they were licensed in accordance with our existing programs,” Bremer said Saturday at a joint news conference in Baghdad with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Asked to name which militias had coalition approval, Bremer seemed to backtrack.

“They were not militias. They were members of various groups. There was no one militia,” he said.

Yet most of the armed men in Najaf wore black arm bands emblazoned with the word “Badr” — identifying them as members of the Shiite Badr Brigade Militia.

The brigade — the armed wing of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq — was ordered to disarm and disband by U.S. forces shortly after the fall of Baghdad five months ago. Its defiant reappearance takes on particular significance because its new leader also sits on the U.S.-picked Iraqi Governing Council.

Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim took over the leadership of the Supreme Council after his brother, Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, was assassinated in an Aug. 29 car bomb outside the Imam Ali shrine. Between 85 and 125 people also were killed.

Rumsfeld dismissed suggestions by Iraqi leaders that the Najaf attack showed coalition forces had failed to provide adequate security.

“Instead of pointing fingers … at the security forces of the coalition … I think it’s important for the Iraqi people to step up and take responsibility for their security by providing information” to U.S. forces, Rumsfeld said.

He said it would be a mistake to boost American troop levels in Iraq because it “would increase the number of targets” for terrorists.