Iraq deputy PM hurt in suicide bombing

Iraq's deputy prime minister, a Sunni who crossed the country's sectarian divide to join the Shia-led government, was wounded yesterday in a suicide bombing at a mosque in the courtyard of his home. Nine people were killed, police said.

The bomber blew himself up as Salam al-Zubaie, one of two deputies to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, and other worshippers were leaving the mosque near the heavily fortified Green Zone, according to police and a Sunni politician.

An al-Qa'ida affiliate claimed responsibility last night for the suicide bombing. The Islamic State of Iraqsaid in a statement posted on an Islamic website that the group "brings the Islamic nation ... good news that our troops were able, with God's will, to target" Mr al-Zubaie.

A police spokesman said a car parked nearby exploded at the same time.

Ziad al-Ani, an official from the Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party, said Mr al-Zubaie was in a "serious condition" and being kept in the intensive care unit at a hospital run by the US in the Green Zone. He said the politician's condition was worse than initially thought because shrapnel had penetrated his chest.

A spokesman for the US military, Lt Col Christopher Garver, said an adviser to the deputy prime minister was killed in the attack, and 14 were wounded, including five of Mr al-Zubaie's bodyguards. The adviser, Mufeed Abdul-Zahra, was wounded and died shortly after at the hospital.

The mosque was built inside the courtyard of Mr al-Zubaie's compound in a residential area behind the Foreign Ministry, but worshippers can access it from the street outside, Mr al-Ani said. The compound is near the Green Zone, which houses the US and British embassies and the Iraqi government headquarters.

Baghdad authorities have imposed a weekly four-hour vehicle ban on Fridays to protect the services from suicide car bombers.

Yesterday's bombings came a day after a rocket exploded 50 metres from the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, during a news conference in the Green Zone, just minutes after Iraq's Prime Minister said the visit showed the city was "on the road to stability".

Mr Ban's unannounced stop in the Iraqi capital on Thursday was the first visit by a UN secretary-general since November 2005. The UN Security Council issued a statement condemning the rocket firing as an "abhorrent terrorist attack".

Meanwhile, in the predominantly Shia area of Habibiyah yesterday, a bomb placed in a car in a used car lot exploded, killing four and wounding 19 in eastern Baghdad, near the militia stronghold of Sadr City.

In a separate attack, three suicide bombers driving trucks rigged with tanks of toxic chlorine gas struck targets in the Sunni insurgent stronghold west of Baghdad last week, killing at least two Iraqi policemen and wounding 356 people.

The Islamic State of Iraq said its duty was to "purify these tribes from those outlaws" who support the US-backed government. But it denied using "poisonous gas" against civilians, calling the chlorine claims propaganda.

The group said in an internet statement: "There are some people who choose to be helpers to the crusader occupiers and their stooges, those who try to save the crusaders and they were the last card used by the US army in its war against the true mujahedin."

The statement could not be independently verified, but it was posted on a website commonly used by militant groups.

The US has sent about 30,000 additional troops to support the efforts to pacify the capital and Anbar province. While the fighting in Baghdad has been between Shia and Sunnis, there has been more of an internal struggle in the Sunni-dominated province that stretches to the borders with Syria, Saudi Arabia and Jordan.

Iraq's Shia-dominated government has pushed for a greater UN role and was banking on decreased violence in the capital to show that it was returning to normal six weeks into a joint security crackdown.