Killing of Iraq governing council chief deals blow to coalition

BAGHDAD - A suicide car bomb killed the head of Iraq's Governing Council on Monday, dealing a major blow to the US coalition battling a Shi'ite insurgency and a growing prisoner abuse scandal.

Abdul Zahra Othman Mohammad, a Shi'ite Muslim also known as Izzedin Salim, was in the last car of a Governing Council convoy waiting at a checkpoint to enter the "Green Zone" coalition headquarters in central Baghdad when the car bomb exploded.

The attack underlined the vulnerability of the Baghdad administration just six weeks before the US-led occupiers are set to hand over sovereignty to Iraqis, though officials insisted violence would not derail the political process.

At least six people were killed as the blast tore through the crush of cars and pedestrians waiting to get into the heavily guarded compound of Saddam Hussein's former palaces, blowing bodies apart and melting the asphalt.

"The other members escaped unharmed. They managed to get through the checkpoint before the explosion. Salim was still waiting to enter," Deputy Foreign Minister Hamed al-Bayati said.

He told Reuters it was too soon to say if the attack was aimed specifically at the councillors, gathering for a meeting of the 25-member body which is headquartered in the Green Zone.

More than a dozen vehicles were destroyed, including minibuses from which doctors wearing masks and rubber gloves pulled burnt bodies.

"There were a lot of cars and people on foot standing there, and then this massive explosion," said Raad Mukhlis, a security guard at a nearby residential compound. "I saw body parts and martyrs everywhere."

Responsibility for the last suicide car bomb at the US administration headquarters on May 6 was claimed by a group led by top al Qaeda figure Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, suspected of beheading US hostage Nick Berg earlier this month.

"This will strengthen our resolve to continue the political process," Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari told reporters on the sidelines of a World Economic Forum in Jordan.

"This will not derail the process," he said as the clock ticked down to a June 30 handover of sovereignty of Iraqis.

While US-led forces battle insurgents, the scandal over the treatment of Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib jail near Baghdad continued to haunt the occupiers.

The prisoner scandal has shattered US credibility in Iraq and the Arab world as well as dented President George W. Bush's re-election expectations in November elections.

The New Yorker magazine said at the weekend that the abuses resulted from a plan approved by Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for tougher interrogation methods to fight insurgents.

Citing current and former US intelligence officials, it said tougher questioning was part of a secret plan giving advance approval to kill, capture or interrogate terrorist leaders.

The Bush administration, which insists the abuse was confined to a number of low-level guards, derided the report by reporter Seymour Hersh. The Pentagon said abuses, in pictures published around the world, were not sanctioned.

Pressure is mounting on Washington from its allies, both inside and outside Iraq, for a handover of real power when an interim government is installed to steer the country to elections in January.

Italy, under increasing domestic pressure over its involvement in Iraq, has been prominent in recent days in calling for Iraqis to have a real say in military affairs after the handover, though Washington insists US commanders will call the shots while their troops are still there.

Domestic pressure on the Italian government, which has the third largest troop contingent in Iraq, was likely to increase following battles between Italian troops and the militia of rebel Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr overnight.

Heavy clashes around one of several bridges spanning the Euphrates River in the southern city of Nassiriya forced the Italians to abandon a small garrison and withdraw to their main camp about 10km outside Nassiriya.

One Italian soldier was killed and at least 16 wounded.

Fighting between coalition troops and Sadr's Mehdi Army has widened since Friday, when US troops pushed onto sacred ground in the holy Shi'ite city of Najaf for the first time to attack militia positions in its ancient cemetery.

US commanders call it a "minor uprising", but it has intensified calls for the coalition to plan its exit.

Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini also called on US commanders to avoid frontal assaults on Najaf and nearby Kerbala, home to some of the holiest sites in Shi'ite Islam.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq