Deputy Prime Minister Wounded
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

BAGHDAD (AP) – Iraq’s Sunni deputy prime minister was wounded Friday in a suicide bombing at a mosque in the courtyard of his home that killed six people, including one of his advisers, authorities said.
The bomber blew himself up as Salam al-Zubaie, one of two deputies to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, and other worshippers were leaving the mosque near the heavily fortified Green Zone , according to police and a Sunni politician.
Military spokesman Lieutenanr Colonel Christopher Garver said Mr. al-Zubaie was in a hospital run by America in the Green Zone but would not comment on his condition.
Ziad al-Ani, a top official of the Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party, said Mr. al-Zubaie was slightly wounded in his leg.
Police said six people were killed, including an adviser, and 10 others were wounded, including five of Mr. al-Zubaie’s bodyguards. The adviser, Mufeed Abdul-Zahra, was wounded in the attack and died later at the hospital.
Police said the attack occurred as worshippers were leaving, while al-Ani said the bomber blew himself up inside the mosque during the traditional weekly prayer service.
Baghdad authorities have imposed a weekly four-hour vehicle ban on Fridays to protect the services from suicide car bombers.
The mosque was built inside the courtyard of Mr. al-Zubaie’s compound in a residential area behind the Foreign Ministry, but worshippers can access it from the street outside, al-Ani said. The compound is near the Green Zone, which houses the U.S. and British embassies and the Iraqi government headquarters.
Friday’s bombing came a day after a rocket exploded 50 yards from the U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon during a news conference in the Green Zone, causing him to cringe and duck just minutes after Iraq’s prime minister said the visit showed the city was “on the road to stability.”