Bomb Targets Iraqi Politicians' Offices

Iraqi police inspect the scene of a suicide car bomb attack just outside the fortified Green Zone in Baghdad, Iraq, on Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2007. The bombing took place in western Baghdad, less than 150 yards (meters) from a series of buildings that included offices of Ayad Allawi, Iraq's first post-Saddam prime minister and a secular Shiite, and those of Saleh al-Mutlaq, the head of the Iraqi National Dialogue Front, a Sunni bloc. Two guards were killed in the attack. (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed) (Khalid Mohammed - AP)

In January, six Iraqis were killed in a U.S.-led raid on other offices for al-Mutlaq. The U.S. military and Iraqi police said they suspected the offices were being used as an al-Qaida safe house.

Hussam al-Azawi, a member of Allawi's party, said there were indications of an assassination plot ahead of the suicide attack.

"The threats and plots came from a neighboring country," al-Azawi told The Associated Press, without elaborating. "We received intelligence about this and informed the government and the Americans to reinforce the guards at our headquarters."

In a statement, Allawi's Iraqi National Accord bloc also said it had informed the U.S., the U.N. and the Iraqi government of a plot against the former prime minister. "Unfortunately no action was taken," the statement said.

Also Tuesday, an anti-al-Qaida Sunni tribal sheik who was promoting national unity was killed along with his nephew in a drive-by shooting near Tal Afar, 260 miles northwest of Baghdad. The attack was the latest in a series of strikes against Sunnis who have joined forces with the American and Iraqi governments against the terror network.

In the southern city of Basra, the bullet-riddled bodies of a Christian woman and her brother were found in a garbage dump on Monday, police and church officials said Tuesday, speaking on condition of anonymity because they feared reprisal. The victims had been kidnapped the day before.

Basra's police chief, Maj. Gen. Jalil Khalaf, has said patrols of motorbikes or unlicensed cars with tinted windows are accosting women not wearing traditional dress and head scarves, known as the hijab, and the mutilated bodies of 40 women have been found this year.

The attacks in Iraq's second-largest city, 340 miles southeast of Baghdad and near the Iranian border, come with Britain poised to hand over security responsibilities for the Basra province to the Iraqis, probably next week.

Still, the U.S. military has pointed to strong security gains in Iraq, especially in the capital. It said Tuesday that mortar and rocket attacks in Baghdad had declined to 25 November from 49 in October. According to the statement, there were seven mortar or rocket attacks in Baghdad during the first week of December _ all but one in residential neighborhoods.