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Iraq: Roadside Bomb Kills Senior Shiite Lawmaker | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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Prayer beads are seen at the site of a suicide bomb attack in Baqouba, 35 miles (60 kilometers) northeast of Baghdad, Iraq. (AP)


Prayer beads are seen at the site of a suicide bomb attack in Baqouba, 35 miles (60 kilometers) northeast of Baghdad, Iraq. (AP)

Prayer beads are seen at the site of a suicide bomb attack in Baqouba, 35 miles (60 kilometers) northeast of Baghdad, Iraq. (AP)

BAGHDAD, (AP) – Two Shiite lawmakers say a senior member of anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s movement has died of wounds suffered in a roadside bombing in Baghdad.

Officials say Thursday’s explosion occurred as Saleh al-Auqaeili’s car passed about 200 yards (meters) away from an Iraqi army checkpoint in a heavily secured area near Baghdad’s main Shiite district of Sadr City.

Ahmed al-Massoudi, a spokesman for the Sadrist bloc, and Hassan al-Rubaie, another lawmaker who was at the hospital, confirmed that al-Auqaeili has died.

Al-Auqaeili is a senior member of al-Sadr political bloc, which has 30 seats in the 275-member parliament. The Shiite cleric’s cease-fire order to his militia has been a key factor in a sharp decline in violence over the past year.

An Iraqi boy waits to receive presents at a checkpoint in a village near the town of Baquba in Diyala province. (R)

An Iraqi boy waits to receive presents at a checkpoint in a village near the town of Baquba in Diyala province. (R)

A U.S. military bomb technician retrieves the hair of a victim after a suicide bomb attack in Baqouba, 35 miles (60 kilometers) northeast of Baghdad. (AP)

A U.S. military bomb technician retrieves the hair of a victim after a suicide bomb attack in Baqouba, 35 miles (60 kilometers) northeast of Baghdad. (AP)