Iraqi Vice President Escapes Bombing
Iraq's Shiite vice president escaped an apparent assassination attempt Monday after a bomb exploded in municipal offices where he was making a speech, knocking him down with the force of the blast that left at least 10 people dead.
Outside the capital, a suicide car bomber exploded near a police station in Ramadi, killing at least 13 people and wounding 10, police said. It was the second bombing in less than a week in the volatile province of Anbar, which like many areas outside Baghdad has seen increased violence as U.S. and Iraqi forces crack down in the capital.
In the Baghdad bombing, Adel Abdul-Mahdi was bruised and hospitalized for medical exams, an aide said. Police initially blamed the attack on a bomb-rigged car, but later said the explosives were apparently planted inside the building.
The attack sent another message that suspected Sunni militants could strike anywhere despite the security crackdown across the capital. Hours before the blast, U.S. military teams with bomb-sniffing dogs combed the building, said workers at the site.
The bomb struck while Abdul-Mahdi was addressing municipal officials in the upscale Mansour district, which has many embassies and saw a rise in private security patrols after past kidnappings blamed on militants.
Abdul-Mahdi is one of two vice presidents. The other, Tariq al-Hashemi, is Sunni.
A public works employee, Tagrid Ali, said he was listening to the speech. "Then I heard a big explosion," he said. "I fell to the ground and whole place was filled with black smoke."
Iraqi and U.S. soldiers cordoned off the area and bomb-detection teams combed the building. An Associated Press photographer saw a man being led from the building by security forces, but there was no official word on arrests.
"The aggression against you this day is further proof that these groups are doing their best to destroy Iraq's unity," said a message to the vice president from Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, who heads Iraq's largest Shiite political group.
At least 10 people were killed and 18 injured in the blast, police said. An earlier explosion elsewhere in Baghdad killed at least three policemen.
Also Monday, the Iraqi Cabinet approved draft legislation to manage the country's vast oil industry and divide its wealth among the population, a key U.S. benchmark for progress in this country. The legislation now goes to parliament for approval.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki announced the decision after the Kurds accepted the draft oil bill over the weekend, nearly two months after the government's own deadline for enacting a new oil law.
Al-Maliki said the measures would be "another foundation stone" in building a new Iraq, which relies on oil revenues for about 90 percent of its national budget.
It was unclear when 275-member parliament will vote on the measure. The legislature reconvenes early next month.
In other developments:
In Ramadi, the bomber tried to slam through a checkpoint outside a police station but detonated the vehicle after police opened fire. At least three policemen were killed and 10 civilians, according to authorities. A truck bomb struck worshippers leaving a mosque on Saturday in Habbaniyah, to the east of Ramadi, on Saturday, killing more than 50 people.
Separately, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani was in stable condition in a hospital in Amman, Jordan, on Monday, recuperating from exhaustion and lung inflammation, Iraqi officials said.
Talabani, 73, fell ill Sunday and was unconscious when he was rushed to a hospital in Sulaimaniyah, his hometown in northeastern Iraq. He was then flown to neighboring Jordan for extensive examination.
"He lost fluids, but his heart is very well and there's no need for him to be flown anywhere, whether the United States or elsewhere, for further treatment," Saad al-Hayyani, the Iraqi ambassador to Jordan, told The Associated Press after he visited Talabani at the King Hussein Medical City.
In Diyala, the province northeast of Baghdad, U.S. and Iraqi forces seized a weapons cache that includes parts for sophisticated roadside bombs that are believed to originate in Iran.
Military officials told the AP that the arsenal discovered Saturday is one of the biggest found north of the Iraqi capital and contains components for so-called EFPs — explosively formed projectiles that fire a slug of molten metal capable of penetrating armored vehicles.
The U.S. military has said elite Iranian corps are funneling EFPs to Shiite militias in Iraq for use against American troops. The area where the cache was found is dominated by Sunni insurgents, but also includes pockets of Shiites.
Along with the EFPs, the weapons cache contained more than two dozen mortars and 15 rockets. There were enough metal disks to make 130 EFPs, the military said.
Capt. Clayton Combs, the commander of the company that found the cache, said they had found one or two EFPs previously, but this was the first discovery of an assembly facility for them.
"This is a significant amount," he said during a news conference in Baghdad. "Before we have found one or two EFPs at the most and those are usually at the site of deployment. This is the first cache ... that has actually been found as far as a production facility."
Last week, U.S. troops found a suspected Shiite weapons hideout in the southern city of Hillah that also included parts to make the lethal roadside bombs. The New York Times reported that the stash included a bomb-rigged fake boulder made of polyurethane that was apparently ready to be placed for an attack and a U.S. explosives expert said the device — like others found in the raid — has been used by Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. Iran is believed to be a major supporter of Hezbollah.
A statement from the U.S. military Monday said that 63 weapons caches have been discovered during major U.S.-Iraqi security sweeps around Baghdad that began Feb. 14. The arsenals included anti-aircraft weapons, armor-piercing bullets, bomb components and mortar rounds, the statement said.
In Baghdad, Iraq's Appeals Council agreed to review the case of Saddam Hussein's deputy, Taha Yassin Ramadan, who was sentenced to death by hanging Feb. 12 for his role in the massacre of Shiite civilians in 1982 following an assassination attempt against the former Iraqi leader.