Iraqi Governor Escapes Injury in Suicide Blast

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BAGHDAD — A female suicide bomber blasted an Iraqi convoy north of Baghdad today, killing two people but narrowly missing a provincial governor in the second suicide attack by a woman at Diyala province in as many days.

Governor Raad Rashid al-Tamimi ordered an indefinite curfew at Diyala’s provincial capital of Baqouba, where the attack occurred.

It happened a day after Prime Minister Maliki’s government announced a weeklong suspension of military operations at Diyala to give militants a chance to surrender.

Mr. Tamimi and the commander of Iraqi ground forces, General Ali Ghaidan, were traveling to a meeting of the provincial council at Baqouba when the woman detonated her explosives as the vehicles approached, American and Iraqi officials said.

Neither the governor nor the general was injured, they said.

The attack could have been more devastating, but the attacker triggered her explosives prematurely — possibly because she feared guards had spotted her, officials said.

Yesterday, a female suicide bomber struck a checkpoint at a market at Baqouba, killing one policeman and wounding 14 other people, including nine police.

Diyala, stretching northeast from Baghdad to the Iranian border, has proven among the most difficult of Iraq’s 18 provinces to pacify, in part because of its complex mixture of Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds.

The Islamic State of Iraq, an al-Qaida front organization, declared Baqouba as its capital after Sunni extremists shifted operations from Anbar province following a revolt by Sunni Arab tribes there.

The founder of al-Qaida at Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was killed in Diyala by an American airstrike in June 2006.

Many Sunnis at Diyala feel disenfranchised. Shiites hold a disproportionate share of power, including the governorship, because many Sunnis boycotted the last provincial election in January 2005.

A bill to hold new provincial elections failed to win parliamentary approval this month because of a dispute over power-sharing in the northern Iraqi oil center of Kirkuk.

Mr. Maliki launched a military operation at Diyala last month, hoping to replicate successes against Shiite and Sunni militants at Baghdad, the southern city of Basra and the northern city of Mosul.

Yesterday, the Iraqi Defense Ministry said military operations would stop at Diyala for a week “to give gunmen a chance to surrender.” an American military spokesman Colonel Jerry O’Hara said American and other multinational forces would comply with the directive.

Military operations were continuing elsewhere.

The American military said American soldiers at Baghdad captured nine people linked to the Hezbollah Brigades, a Shiite extremist group that America believes is backed by Iran — a charge the Iranians deny.

An American statement said the militants were seized in a series of raids in the north of the capital on yesterday and today.

One of those apprehended was believed to control a militant cell at Basra and was involved in smuggling weapons and fighters from Iran, the American statement said.

American troops also detained 12 people believed linked to al-Qaida at Iraq, a Sunni group, during raids in the Baghdad area and Mosul, 225 miles northwest of the capital.

American troops also handed over a patrol base to the Iraqi army at Latifiyah, 20 miles south of Baghdad.

American officials said the handover signaled greater confidence in the Iraqis to control the area, once known as the Triangle of Death because of frequent attacks by Sunni extremists against Shiite civilians and American troops.

Also today, the speaker of Iraq’s parliament, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, flew to Jordan for treatment of high blood pressure and heart problems, his office said. Mr. Mashhadani, a Sunni Arab, was hospitalized in July after fainting during a parliament session.


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