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Car Bomb Kills Iraqi Governing Council Head
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Ezzedine
Salim
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BAGHDAD,
May 17 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - The rotating President
of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council was killed Monday, May
17, in a car-bomb attack on his convoy west of Baghdad.
Ezzedine
Salim was killed when a booby-trapped car ripped through his four-car
convoy near a checkpoint of the heavily protected Green Zone, home of
the headquarters of the U.S.-led occupation authorities in
Iraq
.
His
car caught the full force of the explosion close to a checkpoint at
the huge U.S.-led occupation headquarters that left 10 people dead and
eight wounded, including two
U.S.
soldiers.
Hamid
Al-Bayati, spokesman for the Supreme Council for the Islamic
Revolution in Iraq (SCIRII), confirmed the death.
"He
was in a convoy that stopped at the entrance to the Green Zone when
the explosion happened. Ezzedine Salim was killed in the
explosion," he told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
U.S.
occupation troops cordoned off the area as fire engines and ambulances
raced to the scene and
U.S.
helicopters flew overhead.
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Iraqi
policemen and civilians survey the site of the explosion (AFP)
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Smoke
was seen rising after the explosion at about
9:30 am
(0530 GMT) and followed the shuddering explosion.
Earlier
reports said that Salim was seriously wounded in the attack and was
taken to the hospital in the immediate vicinity.
The
council said it selected Ghazi Mashal Ajil al-Yawer, a Sunni Muslim
civil engineer from the northern city of
Mosul
, to replace Salim.
Al-Yawer
will serve as head of the U.S.-appointed council until the transfer of
sovereignty to Iraqis on June 30.
Moderate
Salim,
a Shiite Muslim who headed the Islamic Dawa movement in the southern
city of
Basra
, took over on May 1 for a month's tenure as the head of the council.
Also
known as Abdel Zahra Osman Mohammad, Salim was an active member of the
Shiite Al-Dawa Al-Islamia Party. But he defected in 1982 and was
better known for his moderate views and bids to cement national unity
and find a common ground between the Sunnis and the Shiites in his
country.
He
spent four years in jail from 1974 to ’78 under the ousted regime of
Saddam Hussein.
Salim
was the second member of the council to be killed since it started
operations.
In
September 2003, Akila Al-Hashimi, a woman member of the council, was shot
dead and died of her wounds, becoming the first Iraqi
councilor killed after the U.S. occupation troops rolled into Baghdad
on April 9, 2003.
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