BAGHDAD, 21 August 2007 — An Iraqi provincial governor was blown up by a roadside bomb yesterday in what appeared to be an escalation of a power struggle between rival Shiite factions that threatens to destabilize the oil-producing south.
Mohammed Ali Al-Hassani, governor of Muthanna province, was on his way from his home in the city of Rumaitha to Samawa, the provincial capital, when his convoy of nine cars was hit by a powerful roadside bomb, provincial officials said.
One bodyguard was also killed and two others wounded.
Hassani was the second provincial leader to be killed in two weeks. The governor of southern Diwaniya province, a fellow member of the powerful Shiite Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council (SIIC), was blown up by a roadside bomb on Aug. 11.
SIIC and Shiite leader Moqtada Sadr’s political movement are uneasy bedfellows in the ruling Shiite Alliance and have 30 seats each in Parliament. Tensions have sometimes sparked fierce clashes between fighters loyal to the two groups.
SIIC and its armed wing, the Badr Organization, are locked in a struggle with Sadr’s Mehdi Army militia for control of towns and cities in Iraq’s predominantly Shiite southern provinces. Hassani was a senior leader of the Badr Organization.
Hadi Al-Ameri, an Iraqi parliamentarian and head of the Badr Organization, which he insists has renounced violence, blamed remnants of Saddam Hussein’s Baathist regime for the killing. “The purpose behind these assassinations is to create Shiite-Shiite strife,” Ameri said.
A caller to Reuters from the previously unheard of group Ansar Allah claimed responsibility for killing Hassani, accusing him of corruption. The claim could not be verified.
Analysts fear the turf war will escalate as the SIIC and the Sadrists try to strengthen their powerbases ahead of provincial elections expected in 2008.
“This is part of a settling of scores prior to the elections next year,” said a senior Shiite official who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the subject.
He said Hassani had played a key role in facing elements which had taken up arms against the government, an apparent reference to rogue elements of the Mehdi Army.
Making the first visit by a senior French official since the US-led invasion in 2003, Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said France was ready to play a role in Iraq, but only after listening to representatives of all ethnic and sectarian groups.
Kouchner said France supported a UN Security Council resolution giving the United Nations a bigger role in Iraq. He was speaking after talks with President Jalal Talabani. “One part of the fight against violence and the restoration of peace and democracy can happen through the United Nations... France approves this path,” he added.
