BAGHDAD — A suicide bomber killed a campaign manager for a major Sunni party near Iraq’s northern city of Mosul on Sunday, the latest sign that ethnic and sectarian tensions are rising ahead of this month’s provincial elections.
Police said the attacker detonated his explosives inside the reception area of Hassan al-Luheibi’s home in Qayara, 40 miles south of Mosul, after saying he had pressing business to discuss.
Bodyguards kept the bomber from going inside, but al-Luheibi emerged from the inner rooms to investigate the commotion and was killed in the blast, according to Col. Safaa Abdul-Razzaq. A police officer at the scene later said a fellow officer was also killed in the attack and three others — including two police officers — were wounded.
Al-Luheibi was the deputy of prominent Sunni Arab lawmaker Saleh al-Mutlaq. He also was the campaign manager for al-Mutlaq’s National Dialogue Front in the northern provinces of Ninevah and Salahuddin.
Al-Luheibi was a general in Saddam Hussein’s army and a veteran of the 1980-88 Iraq-Iran war, according to al-Mutlaq, who also told Iraq’s Dubai-based Al-Sharqiya television that the attacker looked 15 or 16 years old.
Nobody claimed responsibility for the attack but the competition in the run-up to the Jan. 31 vote for provincial councils is expected to be fierce in Mosul, with Sunni Arab politicians and their rival Kurds jockeying for power. The city also remains one of the most dangerous in Iraq despite recent security gains. Al-Qaida in Iraq and other militant Sunni insurgents retain influence there.
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