Iraq ex-PM survives assassination attempt

Iraq's former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said gunmen tried to assassinate him in Shi'ite Islam's holiest shrine yesterday, forcing him to cut short an election campaign visit pursued by an angry mob. "It appeared to be an assassination attempt," the secular Shi'ite said; 60-70 men in black, armed with guns and knives, set upon his small party as he prayed at the Imam Ali mosque.

One took aim but dropped his gun, said the former US-backed premier, who is mounting a strong challenge to the ruling Shi'ite Islamist bloc for the December 15 parliamentary vote.

No independent account was available and it was unclear just how Mr Allawi's mostly unarmed group had escaped serious injury.

Police said two of Mr Allawi's party were hurt when men with batons attacked them and they fled the shrine under a hail of rocks, tomatoes and shoes - the latter a grave insult in Iraq. Television images showed people running as others threw sandals.

Mr Allawi, who seems to relish playing up to a tough-guy image and once barely survived an axe attack by agents of Saddam Hussein, refused to accuse any group directly. But broad hints that Islamist rivals had a hand in it are likely to inflame an already bad-tempered campaign for the majority Shi'ite vote.

"We believe this was premeditated," he said on his return to Baghdad. "It was very clear that they had evil intent to kill either the whole delegation or at least me."

Aides said his assailants chanted support for backers of militant cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, whose black-uniformed Mehdi Army militia rose up in Najaf against Mr Allawi's US-nominated government in 2004 before being crushed by US soldiers.

Up to five witnesses are set to testify when the trial of Saddam resumes today, as the prosecution pushes ahead with a case that is drawing mounting local and international criticism.

Missing, however, will be one of five judges; he stood down, court sources said, after realising that one of the defendants may have been involved in killing his brother some years ago. It should have no significant effect on proceedings.

Meanwhile, German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged the kidnappers of a German woman taken hostage in Iraq to release her immediately and said the government was working "around the clock" to free the 43-year-old archaeologist. Ms Merkel told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper the government was doing all it could to rescue Susanne Osthoff and her driver, who disappeared nine days ago. "The members of the crisis committee are working around the clock to achieve this," she said. "We are calling on the perpetrators to release her immediately."

The wife of British hostage in Iraq Norman Kember pleaded with his captors to release him and three other Western aid workers and not kill them as threatened, Al Jazeera television reported yesterday.

A previously unknown group calling itself "Swords of Truth" has threatened to kill the men unless Iraqi detainees were released by Thursday.