Within 24 hours of the start of the fight in Haifa Street, Gen. Razzak Hamza, a Sunni Iraqi Army commander of the Fifth Brigade, 6th Iraqi Division, was relieved of duty by the Shiite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, and replaced by a Shiite commander. It was reported that the prime minister blamed Hamza for the violence on Haifa Street, and said he was not doing enough to stop it. It was believed that the meddling from the prime minister's office was driven by sectarian motives, in part because Razzak had been putting pressure on the Shiite militias. The interference by the Maliki administration raised questions about whether government leaders are truly willing to put Iraq's sectarian differences aside.