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Blast Destroys Sunni Political Headquarters In Fallujah

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The New York Times

Published: June 13, 2008

BAGHDAD - A leading Sunni political party's headquarters in western Iraq was blown up early Thursday morning, and in southern Iraq, where Shiite factions have been fighting one another, a powerful bomb was discovered on the road to an important Shiite shrine.

Both episodes pointed to probable tensions in the months ahead of provincial elections in which factions are fighting hard to ensure that they have a place at the political table.

The explosion of the headquarters of the Iraqi Islamic Party in Fallujah, west of Baghdad, happened about 6 a.m., according to witnesses, who said the American military had been near the site of the bombing until about an hour before the detonation.

The Fallujah City Council blamed the Americans for the blast, saying it had also damaged a health center next door. Iraqi Islamic Party members were more circumspect.

"We cannot accuse anyone because we do not have enough information," said Abid al-Kareem al-Sammaraie, an Iraqi Islamic Party member who serves in Parliament.

"Our information is that the American forces were in the same place as the explosion," Sammaraie said. "We need more information to figure out who is behind that explosion."

There is a competition for power among Sunni factions in Anbar province, where Fallujah is located. For months, there has been an all but open conflict between the Iraqi Islamic Party and the Awakening Councils, pro-American factions led by tribal leaders who are beginning to organize to compete in the elections.

The Awakening Councils, which did not exist during the previous election, think they were left out of the political equation in the province even though they are more powerful than any party.

Separately, in southern Iraq, where Shiite factions are involved in an internecine power struggle, an improvised explosive device was found on the road to a Shiite shrine, said Maj. Nasser al-Majedi, the spokesman of the Dhi Qar Province Police Department. "The road is used continuously by the Iraqi police and the multinational forces," he said.

It was unclear which group set the explosive device, but factions loyal to the cleric Muqtada al-Sadr have been fighting with the Iraqi police and the army, whose members are often tied to a rival Shiite party, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq.

In Baghdad, the American military released a statement that a powerful type of bomb known as an explosively formed penetrator, which can penetrate many types of armor and which American intelligence says is supplied by Iran, had blown up in the Shiite neighborhood of Kadhimiya as a convoy of American troops passed, killing six Iraqi civilians and injuring seven. The blast was first reported on Wednesday when witnesses said that five people had been killed. At the time it was not clear that the targets were American troops.

Among the dead were a 6-year-old boy, his mother, another woman and three men.

"In this case an Iraqi man lost his wife and son in a senseless act of violence," said Lt. Col. Steven Stover, spokesman for Multi-National Division Baghdad, a unit that operates in the Iraqi capital and central Iraq.

A U.S. soldier was killed in Baghdad on Thursday afternoon when an improvised explosive device struck his vehicle, the military said in a statement. In western Iraq, a Marine died from a noncombat-related injury and an investigation is under way, according to a statement from the U.S. Marines Corps.

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