Blast targets Abu Ghraib as government talks continue

FIVE people were wounded in a bomb blast near Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib prison just two days after a brazen attack on the notorious facility, as Iraqi politicians held more talks to try to agree on the shape of the new government.

“It was a suicide tractor bomber,” said one of those wounded in the explosion near the US-run facility west of the capital. Among those injured were three policemen, according to the interior ministry.

The US military released further details of Saturday’s sunset assault on Abu Ghraib, saying that there were about 50 casualties among the rebel attackers in an ensuing battle with US-led forces.

It said about 40 to 60 gunmen took part in the two-hour attack which involved two car bombs, rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and small arms. About 44 US soldiers and 13 detainees were wounded.

“Apache helicopters and artillery fire began to engage the attackers. The terrorists were forced to withdraw after suffering an estimated 50 casualties,” it said in a statement.

An estimated 3,400 Iraqi and Arab prisoners are being held in the facility that was the scene of a prisoner abuse scandal one year ago that tainted the US operations in Iraq.

In other unrest, an Iraqi motorist was badly wounded when foreign security guards shot him for failing to make way for their vehicles on one of the capital’s bridges, according to police and witnesses.

Meanwhile, masked gunmen ransacked and torched the offices of the Iraqi Communist Party in Baghdad’s Shi’ite slum of Sadr City on Sunday night, secretary general Hamid Majid Musa told AFP, adding that the attack caused no casualties.

Meanwhile, on the political front, parliament chose Sunni Muslim Hajem al-Hassani as its speaker on Sunday and was set to meet again tomorrow to elect a presidential council, moving the country one step closer to forming a new government more than two months since the landmark elections.

Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani is the favourite to be elected president - a clear sign of Kurds’ new-found power in Iraq after decades of oppression under Saddam - and his two deputies are expected to be a Shiite Arab and a Sunni Arab.