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Bomber targets compounds of ex-Iraqi leader Allawi and Sunni lawmaker, 2 guards killed
IRAQ VIOLENCE BAG10 5827992
An elderly Iraqi woman grieves for her relative killed in crossfire during clashes between U.S. Army soldiers and insurgents near the city of Baqouba, 60 kilometers (35 miles) northeast of Baghdad, Iraq, Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2007. - photo by Associated Press
    BAGHDAD — A suicide car bomber struck a checkpoint protecting the compounds of Iraq’s former prime minister and a Sunni lawmaker Tuesday, killing two guards in a neighborhood bordering the fortified Green Zone.
    Both men were out of the country, as is common for Iraqi politicians, many of whom maintain homes abroad and are frequent targets for assassination. It was the second bombing in two days apparently targeting Ayad Allawi, Iraq’s first post-Saddam Hussein prime minister.
    Tuesday’s bombing took place in western Baghdad, less than a quarter-mile from a series of buildings that included the home and office compound of Allawi, a secular Shiite, and offices of Saleh al-Mutlaq, the head of the Iraqi National Dialogue Front, a Sunni political bloc.
    Hussam al-Azawi, a member of Allawi’s party, said there were indications of an assassination plot ahead of the suicide attack.
    ‘‘The threats and plots came from a neighboring country,’’ al-Azawi told The Associated Press, without naming it. ‘‘We received intelligence about this and informed the government and the Americans to reinforce the guards at our headquarters.’’
    On Monday, police said a roadside bomb targeted a vehicle carrying guards for Allawi in the same neighborhood. Two guards were injured, as were three policemen and a civilian, police said.
    Al-Mutlaq, speaking from Amman, Jordan, said when the suicide bomber reached the first checkpoint ‘‘he claimed that he was an employee and had access.’’ The offices are in a residential neighborhood, but many of the homes were converted to work spaces because it is convenient to the Green Zone, where the Iraqi government has its headquarters.
    The car bomber turned off the main road and accelerated toward the checkpoint where the morning shift guards were gathered, police said. Al-Mutlaq confirmed reports by police and hospital officials that two guards were killed.
    ‘‘Everyone is vulnerable,’’ he told Al-Arabiya television. ‘‘We have been targeted by three groups — the Americans, Iraqi forces and a suicide bomber. Everyone should wake up and do something to change this situation.’’
    In January, six Iraqis were killed in a U.S.-led raid on other offices for al-Mutlaq. The U.S. military and Iraqi police said they suspected the offices were being used as an al-Qaida safe house.
    ‘‘I turned this house into an office for the front after all my offices were attacked before,’’ al-Mutlaq said. He said the attack was yet another demonstration that ‘‘it is time to rebuild the police and army.’’
    Three Iraqis are on trial in Germany for plotting Allawi’s death in 2004 during a visit to Berlin, including one convicted of supporting the radical Islamic group Ansar al-Islam. And in April, a suicide bomber slipped past security and into the Iraqi parliament dining hall in the Green Zone, killing a Sunni lawmaker and wounding seven other legislators.
    In a statement, Allawi’s Iraqi National Accord bloc said it had informed the U.S., the U.N. and the Iraqi government of a plot against the former prime minister. ‘‘Unfortunately no action was taken,’’ the statement said.
    It said there were no injuries in Monday’s bombing, but added that it expected ‘‘these terrorist attempts to continue.’’
    Violence has declined drastically in Baghdad since summer, when the influx of U.S troops to the capital gained momentum. But a series of attacks in recent days has underscored the fragility of the gains.
    Gunmen on motorcycles fatally shot the head of Iraq’s largest psychiatric hospital as he was returning home from work late Monday, police and a Health Ministry official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they feared reprisal.
    Dr. Ibrahim Mohammed Ajil, believed to be in his 50s, was the head of Rashad hospital, Iraq’s largest and well-known mental institution, which lies on the outskirts of the sprawling Sadr City district of Baghdad.
    According to Health Ministry figures released earlier this year, 618 medical employees, including 132 doctors, as well as medics and other health care workers, have been killed nationwide since 2003.
    Still, the U.S. military has pointed to strong security gains, especially in the capital. The military said Tuesday that indirect fire attacks — a term for mortars and rockets — had declined in November to 25, compared with 49 in October. According to the statement, there were seven mortar or rocket attacks in Baghdad during the first week of December — all but one in residential neighborhoods.
    Meanwhile, U.S. raids Tuesday targeting al-Qaida’s network in central and northern Iraq ended in the death of one suspect thought to be a key associate of an al-Qaida leader in the area, the military said in a statement. Nineteen other suspects were detained. Separate raids in the Baghdad area against rogue Shiite militias netted a cell leader and 10 other suspects, the military said.
    ———
    Associated Press Writer Hamid Ahmed contributed to this report.

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