Blast at Shiite's home kills 15The target of the attack in Baghdad, a political leader, survived. He is a favorite in the Jan. vote.By Hannah AllamInquirer Foreign Staff
BAGHDAD - The Shiite Muslim leader of Iraq's largest political party survived a suicide bombing outside his Baghdad compound yesterday that killed 15 people and wounded at least 50 in another apparent attempt to thwart the Jan. 30 parliamentary election.
The blast targeted the home of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq and the top candidate on a mostly Shiite ticket that is expected to dominate the election.
In a setback to the vote, Iraq's most influential Sunni Muslim political party withdrew from the election yesterday, saying security conditions in volatile provinces would not allow the Sunni minority to participate fully. A Sunni boycott of the vote could lead to skewed results that would undermine the legitimacy of the election.
Also yesterday, the U.S. military announced the deaths of two American soldiers in separate incidents. One was killed and four were injured by a homemade bomb in Baghdad. Another soldier died of wounds from a roadside bomb in Samarra, 60 miles north of the capital.
Hakim was home during yesterday's bombing, safe behind the tall, thick blast walls that protect his office and residence in the upscale Jadiriyah district of Baghdad. The residence was previously assigned to Tariq Aziz, the ousted deputy prime minister.
In TV interviews, Hakim placed equal blame on extremists and the interim government, which he said was unable to protect candidates and voters in the election. The attack came eight days after car bombings in two Shiite holy cities south of Baghdad killed more than 60 people.
"The bomber tried to break into the compound through the main gate, but his car just exploded," said Haitham al-Husseini, Hakim's spokesman. "All the time, the terrorists are targeting the main political leaders, and this was one of those attacks."
Fifteen people were killed and at least 50 were wounded in the explosion, said a police captain, Ahmed Ismail. Thirty-two cars on the street were destroyed or damaged.
Hakim's brother, Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, was killed in a car bombing in the Shiite holy city of Najaf that killed 85 in August 2003. The brothers had spent years of exile in Iran before returning to Iraq after Saddam Hussein's ouster.
Shiites make up about 60 percent of Iraq's population and are eager to take political power after decades of domination by Hussein's mostly Sunni regime. Sunni extremists have targeted Shiite leaders with bombings, executions and kidnappings in the countdown to the election.
Many employees of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq survived the Najaf bombing, but sat wounded in the capital's Yarmouk Hospital after yesterday's attack.
Hospital staff said some of the wounded were so badly burned that the wailing relatives in the hallways could not identify them. As is typical after large bombings, hospital beds filled quickly and patients waited for care in the corridors.
"Another bloody day," said physician Mazen Falah, whose lab coat was stained red. "The days of Yarmouk Hospital are all the same now."
Hours after the bombing, the Iraqi Islamic Party, the largest Sunni political faction, announced its withdrawal from the elections at a news conference in Baghdad. Mohsen Abdel-Hamid, the party's chairman and a member of the interim National Assembly, said the group's demands to delay the vote for six months or until security improved were met with silence from the Iraqi Electoral Commission.
For that reason, Abdel-Hamid said, party officials decided they could not participate in a process that would leave out thousands of voters because of violence in predominantly Sunni cities that are still under curfew. The decision came after weeks of conflicting statements on whether the party would campaign or follow Sunni clerics' call for a boycott.
At least one member of the Sunni party has been assassinated in recent days, suggesting insurgent pressure for it to quit the elections.
Abdel-Hamid said the withdrawal was because "elections could not be carried out in a free, impartial way for all of Iraq." He added that Iraqis were confused by the complicated process and needed more voter education.
"Election officials continue to refuse to listen to reason and postpone the elections," Abdel-Hamid said. "They insist elections will be held on time even though the security situation of Iraq is going from bad to worse."
The electoral commission issued a statement saying that it was too late to remove the party's name from the ballot but that any votes for the group would be declared invalid.
The withdrawal means there is no established Sunni party on the ballot.