A member of Iraq's new parliament on Tuesday died, along with his son and three bodyguards in Baghdad while a bomber has blown himself up in a hospital in the town of Musayyib, killing three people and wounding 13.
According to Reuters, Dhari Ali al-Fayadh, a member of the ruling Shite-dominated political alliance, his son and bodyguards were killed by a car bomb attack on their convoy in the northern outskirts of Baghdad on Tuesday, police sources said.
In the hospital attack, a police spokesman said the bomber dressed in a police uniform blew himself up Tuesday at the police guard station inside the medical facility in the town 75km south of Baghdad. One of those killed and four of the injured were police officers. Five people were killed in a car bomb explosion in Baqouba, north of Baghdad, police said.
Two American soldiers were also killed in blasts on Tuesday.
Attacks in Iraq have intensified dramatically since the new government took office. This development is putting more pressure on US president Bush, who tried to use the first anniversary of Iraq's sovereignty on Tuesday to ease growing domestic criticism about the mission in Iraq, which already took the life of over 1,700 American soldiers.
In an address at the home of the Army's elite 82nd Airborne Division, Bush appealed for the nation's patience for "difficult and dangerous" work ahead in Iraq. "Like most Americans, I see the images of violence and bloodshed. Every picture is horrifying and the suffering is real," Bush said, according to excerpts released ahead of time by the White House. "It is worth it."
"The terrorists can kill the innocent, but they cannot stop the advance of freedom," he said in a speech that was to be attended by 750 soldiers and airmen. "They will fail."
