Bomb explodes outside Iraqi cleric's HQ

Terrorists detonated a bomb outside the house of one of the most important Muslim Shiite clerics in Iraq today, killing three guards and injuring 10 others including family members.

The bomb, a gas cylinder wired to explode, was placed along the outside wall of the home of Mohammed Saeed al-Hakim who suffered scratches on his neck, according to Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim, a member of Iraq’s US-picked Governing Council.

He was also leader of what was the armed wing of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq – headquartered in Iran before the war.

The bomb exploded after noon prayers in the holy city of Najaf.

Iraqi newspapers had reported last week that al-Hakim had received threats against his life. He had also been among a group of three top Shiite leaders that were threatened with death by a rival Shiite cleric shortly after Saddam Hussein was toppled on April 9.

“Obviously terrorist groups who belong to the former regime are behind this incident,” Hakim told the Associated Press.

He said Najaf residents rushed to the ayatollah’s house after the explosion, which shattered windows and damaged a wall.

Meanwhile Iraqis with ties to Saddam Hussein’s once-feared Mukhabarat intelligence agency said US coalition authorities began a quiet recruitment of former agents to work with American intelligence officials in Iraq.

The Iraqis, who refused to be named, said the former agents would work with Americans inside Saddam’s former presidential palace where the US-led coalition has its headquarters.

“It was obvious they would have to turn to the Mukhabarat, they knew everything in this country,” one of the Iraqis said.

Coalition spokesman Charles Heatly, responding to questions over a report about the recruitment of former Saddam intelligence officers in today’s Washington Post, said US military intelligence and civilian authorities were “not leaving any stone unturned to uncover the people who are conducting attacks against the Iraqi people and the coalition forces. And they will continue.”

The Mukhabarat was the foreign intelligence branch of Saddam’s regime and its very name struck fear in the hearts of ordinary Iraqis.

A third Turkoman, injured in weekend ethnic violence in the north of the country died from his wounds, Turkey’s Anatolia news agency reported today.