15 die in Baghdad suicide attack

A suicide bomber blew up his his car outside the home of the leader of Iraq’s biggest political party today, killing 15 people and injuring dozens.

Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq – the country’s most powerful Shiite political group – was in his Baghdad home at the time but was not injured, said his spokesman, Haitham al-Husseini.

The blast, which shook the area and sent a cloud of smoke high above the area, killed 15 people and injured at least 50, said police Captain Ahmed Ismail. Thirty-two cars on the street and near the gates were destroyed or damaged.

“It was a suicide attack near the gate leading to the office,” al-Husseini said. “Several of the guards were killed and wounded.”

Hakim also heads the candidate list of the 228-member United Iraqi Alliance coalition, which is expected to dominate Iraq’s new constitutional assembly following the first free elections on January 30. The coalition is supported by Iraq’s top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

Al-Hakim’s son, Ammar, accused Saddam Hussein’s followers of being behind the suicide attack.

“They are the remains of the dead regime and their allies who carried out similar criminal acts in the past,” he said, adding that many of the blast victims were innocent civilians.

The house, where Hakim has his home and offices, was previously owned by Tariq Aziz, a jailed former senior aide to Saddam Hussein who has been in prison since April last year.

Elsewhere, a US soldier died today and another was injured by a roadside bomb in Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad.