Sunni campaign manager killed in Iraq bombing

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 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.

Al-Luheibi was the deputy of prominent Sunni Arab lawmaker Saleh al-Mutlaq, who confirmed the attack. He also was the campaign manager for al-Mutlaq's National Dialogue Front in the northern provinces of Nineveh, of which Mosul is the capital, 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 Al-Sharqiya television the attacker looked 15 or 16 years old and opened fire on guards before he blew himself up.

"We cannot accuse any party for the time being, but apparently this is part of schemes to target patriotic figures and projects and to disrupt the elections campaign and undermine security before elections," al-Mutlaq said.

Nobody claimed responsibility for the attack, but the competition for 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 remains one of the most dangerous in Iraq despite recent security gains. Al-Qaida in Iraq and other extremist Sunnis retain influence there.

U.S. and Iraqi officials have pinned great hopes on the elections to promote unity among Iraq's fractured groups and stem support for the insurgency. But they also have warned extremists are likely to stage attacks to disrupt the vote.

Also

A U.S. soldier died Sunday of wounds suffered from a roadside bomb in eastern Baghdad. As of Sunday, at least 4,228 members of the U.S. military have died in the Iraq war, according to an Associated Press count.