IRAQ: Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister is wounded in suicide bomb attack

Salam al-Zobaie was attending prayers inside his own compound when the suicide bomber struck. It's the second assassination attempt on a senior member of the Iraqi government in less than a month. Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Salam al-Zobaie, a leading Sunni Arab politician, was wounded when a suicide bomber blew himself up in a hall where he was attending prayers on Friday. Officials said at least six members of Zobaie's entourage were killed in the second assassination bid on a senior member of the U.S.-backed government in a month. One of Zobaie's aides said the suicide bomber appeared to have been one of his own guards. "He's wounded but it's not serious," an official in Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's office told Reuters after Maliki visited Zobaie at the U.S. military hospital in Baghdad's international Green Zone. An aide to Zobaie said the deputy prime minister was hit by shrapnel in the abdomen and shoulder and that two of his brothers were among those wounded or killed. The high-profile attack came the day after a rocket landed yards from the prime minister's home during a news conference with the United Nations secretary general. Moussawi said Zobaie was the target of two coordinated attacks -- the suicide bomber at a prayer hall in the compound of his residence and a car bomb at his home. He said six of Zobaie's security guards were killed and 15 people wounded. Zobaie, one of two deputy prime ministers, is a member of the Accordance Front, the main Sunni Arab grouping in Iraq's Shi'ite-led national unity government. He is also a member of a well-known tribe from the Abu Ghraib area northwest of Baghdad. One of Zobaie's aides said the suicide bomber appeared to have been one of his own guards. The aide said rival factions in the tribe were feuding, one side supporting al Qaeda militants and the other loyal to the deputy prime minister and the government.

ITN Source | March 24, 2007

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