Baghdad bomb kills Sunni official, 3 others

The chairman of the Sunni Fatwa authority in Iraq, Mahdi Sumaidaie, and three of his guards were killed in a car bomb which targeted his convoy west Baghdad. A source in the Iraqi Ministry of Interior told Arabstoday that “a car bomb was parked on the side of the road exploded this morning, targeting the convoy of Chairman of the Sunni Fatwa authority Mahdi Sumaidaie while they left the Omar Mukhtar mosque in Yarmouk, west Baghdad, after Eid prayers. Three of his bodyguards also died, while a number of cars in the convoy were damaged". The source – who wished to remain anonymous – said:  “Ambulances rushed to the scene and transported the victims to the forensics department, while a security force cordoned off the scene and closed all roads leading to it.” The Chairman of the Sunni Fatwa authority recently made several controversial statements where he warned, during the first annual festival for the national reconciliation in which he participated after entering Iraq last December, against the deterioration of the situation in the country. He said that the the current situation in Iraq will have negative consequences, and invited everyone to celebrate the departure of the United States’ troops. In January 1 this year, Sumaidaie considered the position of the Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki from the Syrian crisis distant from a sectarian Arab point of view, saying he did not represent an Iranian trend, while ruling out PM Maliki’s being subject to Iranian pressure for Damascus. On January 4, Sumaidaie said anyone carrying weapons after the US withdrawal was "seeking to kill Iraqis". The last of his statements was in June when he warned about Iraq’s sliding in the "trap of sedition”, saying sectarian war was looming in the country.