Baghdad — Iraq’s parliament speaker narrowly escaped an attack in his home town on Monday while 21 militants died when a car bomb they were readying mistakenly went off, officials said.
The unrest comes amid the worst protracted period of bloodshed in nearly six years, with more than 1,000 people killed last month as security forces grapple with near-daily attacks and battles with anti-government fighters in Anbar province.
Foreign leaders have pressed the Shiite-led government to reach out to the disaffected Sunni minority to undermine support for militants, but Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has taken a hard line ahead of April elections.
On Monday, a convoy carrying parliament speaker Osama al-Nujaifi, Iraq’s most senior Sunni Arab politician, was hit by a roadside bomb in the main northern city of Mosul, his office said.
One of Nujaifi’s bodyguards was wounded, a police captain and a medical source said, but the speaker himself escaped unharmed.
Mosul and surrounding Nineveh province, where Nujaifi’s brother Atheel is governor, is one of Iraq’s most violent areas, with attacks regularly targeting security forces, government officials as well as civilians.
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