Baghdad suicide bomb kills five

A suicide attack killed five people at the interior ministry in Baghdad yesterday as a key political bloc called for early elections in a worsening stand-off that has stoked sectarian tensions.

The blast, which left dozens wounded, came just days after the capital was struck by its deadliest violence in more than four months and as US Vice President Joe Biden urged Iraqi politicians to resolve their differences by talking.

The parliamentary movement loyal to anti-US Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, meanwhile, said it backed the dissolution of Parliament and early elections in a dispute that has seen Iraq’s Sunni vice president accused of running a death squad and a deputy premier call the government a “dictatorship.”

In yesterday’s attack, a suicide bomber rammed an explosives-packed car into the interior ministry compound when guards opened the main gates to allow in electrical maintenance workers, a ministry official said.

At least five people were killed and 39 wounded, security and health officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Among the casualties were at least two policemen killed and 14 wounded.

The blast came after a wave of attacks across Baghdad on Thursday killed 60 people, and violence in the provinces the same day claimed another seven lives. It was the deadliest day in Iraq since mid-August.

The spike in attacks comes with Iraq mired in political dispute.

Yesterday, the political bloc loyal to cleric Sadr called for the dissolution of parliament and early elections.

The movement’s parliamentary chief Baha al-Araji said in a statement that his bloc in Iraq’s Council of Representatives wanted to “dissolve parliament and repeat elections.”

An official at the movement’s headquarters in the southern holy city of Najaf said Araji’s statement “represents all of the bloc, and it represents the opinion of the bloc.”

The call comes after authorities issued an arrest warrant for Sunni Arab Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi on charges he ran a death squad, while Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has called for his Sunni deputy Saleh al-Mutlak to be sacked.

Mr Hashemi denies the accusations, and Mr Mutlak has called the premier a dictator “worse than Saddam Hussein.”

Violence in the provinces the same day claimed another seven lives. It was the deadliest day in Iraq since mid-August

The Sunni-backed Iraqiya bloc, to which both Mr Hashemi and Mr Mutlak belong, has boycotted the Cabinet and Parliament.Mr Hashemi, holed up at the official guesthouse of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani in the country’s autonomous Kurdish region, said in an interview on Sunday he would not go to Baghdad to stand trial and raised the prospect of fleeing Iraq.

Asked if he would return to the capital for trial, Hashemi told AFP: “Of course not.” The 69-year-old attributed his refusal to poor security and politicisation of the justice system.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has said Ankara will not turn Mr Hashemi away if he requests asylum, but that he should stay in Iraq.