Iraq's interim prime minister's office hit |
Nobody was injured in the attack on Allawi's Iraqi National Accord office in Baqubah, but two guards were killed outside the office of the influential Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) there, when gunmen opened fire on council building.
Around 7:30 a.m., eight masked gunmen jumped out of two pickup trucks and opened fire on the guards.The SCIRI is the largest Shiite Muslim political group in Iraq.
About 30 minutes later, attackers threw hand grenades into the offices of the Iraqi National Accord and then planted an improvised explosive device, which exploded shortly afterward, according to a high-ranking INA official in Baghdad.
The attack damaged the building, the official said.
Allawi co-founded the party and serves as its secretary general. The party attempted a failed 1996 coup against Saddam Hussein.
In Erbil, a car bomb exploded as a convoy carrying Mahmoud Mohammed, the Kurdistan Democratic Party's minister of culture, passed by.
Mohammed was slightly injured. One person was killed and 20 others were wounded, including five bodyguards, according to witnesses and an Iraqi ministry official in the city. Erbil is in the northern Kurdish region of Iraq.
The explosion happened around 9:30 a.m. just outside the party's Ministry of Culture. Witnesses said someone parked a Volkswagen car and ran away before it detonated.
Dr. Rowsch Nuri, deputy president of Iraq who was in Erbil on Saturday, confirmed the incident.
Pentagon says strike almost got militant
The violence comes four days ahead of the June 30 handover -- and one day after Pentagon officials said a U.S. airstrike in Fallujah narrowly missed suspected terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
As many as 25 people were killed in Friday's airstrike, which targeted the Jordanian-born Islamic militant, who is believed to have ties to al Qaeda, a senior Defense Department official said.
In the strike, U.S. warplanes targeted a suspected al-Zarqawi safe house on Friday.
As the warplanes began to drop 500-pound bombs on the house, a convoy of cars pulled up to the home. A man got out of a car as the bombs fell and was thrown to the ground by a blast.
According to the official, he was hustled back into the car, clearly alive, and driven away.
The official said al-Zarqawi is thought to be the only person in that network of terrorist insurgents who travels with such a large security detail.
It was the third such U.S. airstrike in a week. On Saturday and Tuesday, so-called safe houses in Fallujah allegedly linked to the al-Zarqawi network were targeted by U.S. forces, and about 38 people were killed.
U.S. officials say al-Zarqawi has close ties to al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
They also blame him for the videotaped beheading of American businessman Nicholas Berg in May, and a group linked to him claimed responsibility for beheading South Korean civilian Kim Sun-il this week.
Tight security as handover nears
Iraq has tightened security ahead of the June 30 handover of sovereignty from the U.S.-led coalition to the Iraqi interim government, and two top Iraqi ministers vowed to stand firm against the escalating insurgency.
At least seven Iraqis were killed and about 54 others were wounded in fighting in Fallujah on Friday, according to a Health Ministry official.
And at least 96 people -- 93 Iraqis and three U.S. troops -- were killed in seemingly coordinated insurgent attacks in five Iraqi cities Thursday. Iraqi police and health officials said 331 people were wounded in the attacks.
Hours after the strikes, the military wing of the Unification and Jihad, a group linked to Zarqawi, issued a statement on a Web site that claimed responsibility for attacking five police stations across Iraq.