Bomb Kills Southern Iraq Police Chief

By SAMEER N. YACOUB

BAGHDAD – A roadside bomb struck a convoy carrying the police chief of a predominantly Shiite province south of Baghdad on Sunday, killing him and two of his bodyguards, authorities said.

The explosion in Babil province’s capital of Hillah, about 60 miles from Baghdad, was the latest in a series of assassinations against provincial leaders in the mainly Shiite region south of the capital as militias and other factions battle for control of the area with an eye toward the eventual withdrawal of U.S.-led forces.

Local authorities acknowledged militia fighters could be behind the attack that killed Brig. Gen. Qais al-Maamouri and two guards, but said the primary suspect was al-Qaida in Iraq, which maintains a strong presence in the northern half of the province that includes towns in the so-called "triangle of death" south of the capital.

Al-Maamouri was politically independent and had a reputation for leading crackdowns against militia fighters. He is thought to have resisted pressure from religious and political groups to release favored members from detention.

The head of the provincial council’s security committee, Hassan Watwet, said an investigation into Sunday’s assassination was under way.

"The primary suspect is al-Qaida, but we do not rule out the second suspect, the militias," Watwet said. "This criminal act reflects the deep bitterness inside the terrorist groups who failed to destabilize the security of Babil province due to the great work of the late police chief."

Police slapped an indefinite curfew on Hillah, where streets quickly emptied of residents amid fears of arrests and clashes in the wake of the killings.

The oil-rich south of Iraq, also home to major pilgrimage sites in the Shiite shrine cities of Najaf and Karbala, has been a focal point for rising tensions between Shiite factions, particularly the Mahdi Army that is nominally loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and the Badr Brigades, the militant arm of the country’s most powerful Shiite party – the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council.

Al-Sadr has in late summer ordered his fighters to stand down for six month in the wake of the death of some 52 people in fighting out between rival groups during a major Shiite pilgrimage in Karbala. Clashes between rival Shiite factions have continued since.

Two southern provincial governors were killed earlier in August – Gov. Mohammed Ali al-Hassani of Muthanna and Gov. Khalil Jalil Hamza in neighboring Qadasiyah province, raising fears of a violent power struggle. The provincial police chief also was killed in the Qadasiyah attack.

Militants also have targeted local Iraqi government officials to try to intimidate those they accuse of collaborating with the U.S. and Iraqi governments.

Underscoring that danger, the head of the Ninevah provincial council survived an assassination attempt in the northern city of Mosul. A roadside bomb exploded near a car carrying Hisham al-Hamdani, police said, adding that the car was damaged but no casualties were reported.