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Baghdad
Governor Assassinated, Bombings Intensify
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A recent television image of Haidri
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BAGHDAD,
January 4 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – In Iraq’s
highest profile assassination in eight months, Baghdad's Governor Ali
Radi Al-Haidari was gunned down Tuesday, January 4, in a roadside
ambush, as a car bomb killed 10 people when it rammed into an Iraqi
security forces checkpoint by the entrance to the heavily-protected
Green Zone.
A
car of gunmen drove up and opened fire on Haidari and his bodyguard in
their car, killing both of them on a road between the western
districts of Hurriyah and Adil, an Iraqi interior ministry official
told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Hospital
sources also confirmed the death of Haidari.
According
to the Associated Press, however, Haidari's three-vehicle convoy was
passing through Baghdad's northern neighborhood of Hurriyah when
gunmen opened fire, killing him and six of his bodyguards, citing the
chief of his security detail, who asked only to be identified as Maj.
Mazen.
Only
a week earlier, Haidari told reporters attacks and
chronic insecurity were impeding reconstruction in the Iraqi capital.
Haidari
is the most senior Iraqi official to be assassinated in Baghdad since
the head of the US-handpicked and now-defunct Governing Council was
killed by a car bomb May last year.
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 to
the US-led occupation authorities and the interim Iraqi government.
Haidari
had survived a previous assassination attempt in Baghdad in September
that killed two of his bodyguards, according to Reuters.
The
technocrat, who worked closely with Americans on the city's
reconstruction, predicted a spike in “violence” in the capital
ahead of the election.
Car
Bomb
Haidari’s
predictions were projecting themselves on the ground more fiercely day
in and day out.
A
truck bombing Tuesday outside a special Iraqi forces command post in
western Baghdad killed 10 people, eight of them policemen, and wounded
56, a source from the interior ministry told AFP.
The
vehicle used in the bombing was rigged with explosives, the source
added.
One
witness, Abu Maiss, told AFP a garbage truck slammed into the gates of
the base of the elite commando division and hit a car, before bursting
into flames, where policemen had gathered after receiving their pay.
“A
large number of police had left the headquarters after receiving their
salaries, when a garbage truck sped toward them,” Maiss said.
“The
vehicle hit a car and the compound's gate and ripped a huge explosion,
shaking the area at 8:45 a.m. (0545 GMT).”
US
troops, backed by Iraqi national guards and police, sealed off the
site, preventing people from entering the area.
The
explosion was not far from the fortress-like Green Zone.
Marine,
3 Britons Killed
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US soldiers survey the burning car bomb in western Baghdad.
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The
US army had its share of casualties Tuesday with a Marine killed in
action in Al-Anbar province west of Baghdad, according to a statement
released by the US military.
Anbar
province includes the resistance hub of Fallujah, where US forces
launched a major assault in November to drive out fighters insisting
to push foreign troops away from Iraq.
Tuesday's
blast followed at least two car bomb attacks on Baghdad Monday,
January 3.
One
of the attacks killed two policemen and a civilian near interim Prime
Minister Iyad Allawi's party headquarters, Reuters added.
An
Iraqi militant group calling itself “Army of Ansar Al-Sunnah”,
which last month mounted the
deadliest attack on US occupation soldiers in the
northern city of Mosul, claimed responsibility for the bombing.
“One
of the lions of Islam launched a heroic martyrdom operation on a huge
congregation of agent policemen protecting the party headquarters of
the apostate Iyad Allawi,” the group said in a statement posted on
its Web site and carried by Reuters.
Also
Monday, three British nationals were killed in an explosion in
Baghdad, the Foreign Office in London said, giving no further details.
Interim
Iraqi Defense Minister
Hazem
Al-Shaalan said Monday the controversial general
elections, scheduled for January 30, could be delayed to a later date
if Iraqi Sunnis agreed to take part.
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