UN envoy to Iraq unharmed in bombing

Associated Press

BAGHDAD

The chief U.N. envoy to Iraq escaped unharmed from a bombing that hit his convoy Tuesday after a meeting with the nation’s top Shiite cleric about how to unsnarl Iraq’s stalemated government. The U.N. said a member of the Iraqi security forces was killed and several others were injured in the attack.

Officials have long worried that the political impasse that has gripped Iraq for more than seven months may lead to violence, and the attack on U.N. Special Representative Ad Melkert underscored those fears.

The U.N. pulled out of Iraq after a 2003 bombing of its Baghdad headquarters killed then-envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello and 21 employees and a series of other attacks against aid workers. But the world body returned in 2004 and has stepped up its presence over the years as violence ebbs and the U.S. military begins to leave Iraq.

U.N. spokeswoman Randa Jamal said Melkert had finished meeting with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and was leaving the Shiite holy city of Najaf when his convoy hit a roadside bomb. Nobody in the delegation was injured, and Melkert was safely back in Baghdad by Tuesday evening, Jamal said.

Jamal said the U.N. convoy was accompanied by an Iraqi security escort. Iraqi Gen. Othman al-Ghanemi, who oversees military operations in the area, initially said nobody in the convoy was killed or injured.

But U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon later confirmed that “regretfully, one member of the Iraqi security forces was killed and several others injured,” U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said. Ban said all U.N. staff, including Melkert and U.N. Deputy Special Representative Jerzy Skuratowicz, escaped without injury.

Ban strongly condemned the attack and vowed that “it will not deter the U.N. from continuing its efforts to assist the Iraqi people on their path to reconciliation and prosperity,” Haq said.

The secretary-general sent condolences to the family of the victim and expressed appreciation to Melkert and the U.N. staff.