Senior Shi’ite cleric’s aide slain near Baghdad mosque

BAGHDAD — Gunmen killed an aide to Iraq’s most influential Shi’ite cleric and two bodyguards in a drive-by shooting outside a Baghdad mosque yesterday.

Elsewhere in the capital, a car bomb exploded near a checkpoint outside the offices of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari’s Islamic Dawa Party, killing one person and injuring at least four more, officials said. Mr. al-Jaafari was not there at the time, party official Ayad al-Nedawi said.

Shi’ite cleric Kamal Ezz al-Deen al-Ghuraifi, an aide to leading Shi’ite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, was shot as he was about to leave al-Doreen mosque after leading prayers, according to his son, Hamid Kamal. Police confirmed the attack.

Two bodyguards were killed and another four were wounded, he said.

Mr. al-Ghuraifi, in his 60s, had been a Baghdad representative of Ayatollah al-Sistani for the past decade, said Amer al-Hussaini, a friend of Mr. al-Ghuraifi’s.

It was the third attack on Ayatollah al-Sistani’s aides in recent weeks.

In the attack on the Islamic Dawa Party offices in Baghdad’s Mansour neighborhood, the suicide bomber detonated the car near a checkpoint about 80 feet from the building, which used to be Mr. al-Jaafari’s house.

Interior Ministry administrative affairs undersecretary police Maj. Gen. Adnan al-Assadi had left the building about a half-hour earlier, police said. A neighbor was killed and four armed guards for the compound were wounded.

Meanwhile, a roadside bomb targeting a U.S. Marine convoy in the Anbar provincial capital of Ramadi instead killed two civilians and wounded two others, said 1st Lt. Blanca Binstock, a spokeswoman.

Another roadside bomb missed a U.S. military convoy in the New Baghdad district but killed a civilian and wounded three others.

In western Iraq, U.S. Marines conducting raids aimed at disrupting foreign fighter networks defused nine roadside bombs yesterday, a day after a light armored vehicle struck a mine, wounding six Marines, a company commander said.

A supply convoy entering the city of Hit found the roadside bombs spread along 500 yards of a major artery, and Marines participating in Operation Sword traced trigger wires to a school, said Maj. Steve Lawson of the 3rd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment.

Marines finished searching houses for weapons yesterday morning in 122-degree heat and began foot patrols in the city, about 85 miles west of Baghdad in volatile Anbar province. The operation began Tuesday with more than 1,000 U.S. troops and Iraqi soldiers.

Maj. Lawson said his company detained 10 suspected insurgents, and one of its tanks killed a man moments after they saw him trigger a roadside bomb.

A fire at a power station that supplies a Baghdad waterworks shut down the facility, leaving millions of people without drinking water, officials said.

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