SUICIDE car bomb killed an Iraqi Shi’ite politician and three others near Baghdad as they were heading to parliament yesterday in an attack likely to further fuel tensions between the minority Sunni Arabs and the country’s Shi’ite majority.

A suicide car bomb killed an Iraqi Shiite politician and three others near Baghdad as they were heading to parliament today, an attack likely to further fuel tensions between the minority Sunni Arabs and the country’s Shiite majority.

More than 1,000 US troops and Iraqi forces launched Operation Sword today in a bid to crush insurgents and foreign fighters in western Iraq, making it the third major offensive in the area in recent weeks.