BAGHDAD - Iraq's deputy prime minister, a Sunni who crossed the country's sectarian divide to join the Shiite-led government, was wounded Friday in a suicide bombing at a mosque in the courtyard of his home. Eight people were killed, including one of his advisers, police said.The bomber blew himself up as Salam al-Zubaie, one of two deputies to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, and other worshippers were leaving the mosque near the heavily fortified Green Zone, according to police and a Sunni politician. It came after a statement purportedly by al-Qaida in Iraq singled out the Sunni deputy prime minister as a stooge "to the crusader occupiers."
Police said a car parked nearby exploded at about the same time.
U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Christopher Garver said al-Zubaie was in a hospital run by the U.S. in the Green Zone but would not comment on his condition. Brig. Qassim al-Mousawi, an Iraqi military spokesman, said al-Zubaie was undergoing surgery, while Ziad al-Ani, a top official of the Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party, said al-Zubaie was slightly wounded in the leg.
Police said eight people were killed in the attack, including an adviser, and 11 were wounded, including five of al-Zubaie's bodyguards. The adviser, Mufeed Abdul-Zahra, was wounded in the attack and died later at the hospital.
Police said the attack occurred as worshippers were leaving, while al-Ani said the bomber blew himself up inside the mosque during the traditional weekly prayer service. The mosque was built inside the courtyard of al-Zubaie's compound in a residential area behind the Foreign Ministry, but worshippers can access it from the street outside, al-Ani said. The compound is near the Green Zone, which houses the U.S. and British embassies and the Iraqi government headquarters.
Baghdad authorities have imposed a weekly four-hour vehicle ban on Fridays to protect the services from suicide car bombers.