Iraq probes deputy PM attack as violence rages

BAGHDAD, (AFP) Iraq was on Saturday interrogating detained bodyguards of Deputy Prime Minister Salam al-Zubayi over a twin-bomb attack that kept the government's top Sunni Arab in hospital for a second day.

The brazen attack inside Zubayi's heavily guarded personal compound while he was praying on the Muslim day of rest has exposed the perilous security of even top-ranking officials and underscored tensions within the Sunni community.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said he had ordered a full inquiry into the suicide and car bombing that killed nine people, including Zubayi's brother.

"We have ordered the interior ministry to conduct a detailed investigation and find who is behind the attack," he told state television.

"We have detained several of his security guards. Their interrogation is on," Brigadier General Qassim Musawi, spokesman of a massive security operation designed to quell the sectarian war engulfing Baghdad, told AFP.

The authorities were chasing after some clues that may lead to the "criminals who carried out this attack," he said without revealing how many guards were in custody.

Dhafter al-Ani, a member of parliament for the National Concord Front, the main Sunni bloc to which Zubayi belongs, charged that the suicide bomber came from the deputy prime minister's own security detail.

"The suicide bomber was one of his bodyguards and he was recruited by the Islamic State of Iraq. He was not related to Zubayi," he told AFP. The Islamic State, a Sunni insurgent coalition led by Al-Qaeda's Iraq branch, posted a statement on the Internet claiming that it carried out Friday's bombing.

"We pray to God not to save the life of this inferior traitor who sold his religion and his people for a cheap return," it proclaimed on a website used by Islamic militant groups.

The group warned of more strikes on Iraqi government "traitors," alluding to politicians from Sunni Arab minority who believe the key to reconciling the country's sectarian warfare lies in joining the Shiite-led national government.

Sunnis, who account for about 20 percent of Iraq's population, are increasingly polarised between political pragmatists and Al-Qaeda-linked fundamentalists who are fighting US troops and the country's 60 percent Shiites.

Iraqi Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi, himself a Sunni whose position is more ceremonial than that of Zubayi, vowed that the authorities would not yield to terrorism following the country's latest high-profile assassination attempt.

"Regardless of what happened, we will continue our struggle to enhance democracy and to ensure stability in my country regardless of the terrorist attacks," he told reporters in Japan.

A security clampdown launched last month by 90,000 Iraqi and US troops has seen a decline in execution-style killings, considered the hallmark of Shiite militias, but bombings long favoured by Sunni insurgents have continued.

Insurgents killed eight people and wounded more than a dozen in attacks in Baghdad on Saturday, including a suicide truck bombing targeting a police station in the restive southern district of Dura, security officials said.

Four policemen and a civilian were killed in the truck bombing while another three Iraqis died in a double mortar attack in the Abu Chir district.

Musawi, who visited Zubayi in the US military hospital in Baghdad's most secure Green Zone, said the deputy premier had been admitted to intensive care but was now "stable" following surgery to remove shrapnel from his chest.

"I did not speak to him as he was in an intensive care unit, but his condition is stable. He will be transferred to another ward today," he said.

Zubayi, 48, sustained chest and face injuries when a suicide bomber blew himself up as the minister prayed at a mosque inside his residential compound.

Just minutes later, a car bombing ripped through the compound. The double attack killed nine people and wounded 15 others.

Zubayi, who is one of two deputy premiers, had recently complained on pan-Arab television of being powerless in the Shiite-dominated government.

The US military announced the death of one more soldier in Iraq taking its losses since the March 2003 invasion to 3,229.