Shi’ite politician killed in bomb blast

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.

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

The military campaigns, however, have not been able to capsize a resilient insurgency that has killed more than 1,360 people - mostly civilians and Iraqi security forces - since Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari announced his Shi’ite-dominated government on April 28.