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Baghdad: Ex-Iraqi deputy prime minister and former Pentagon favourite, Ahmad Chalabi, escaped a suicide car bomb attack on his convoy in Baghdad, an official in his office said on Saturday.
Chalabi was not wounded, but the explosion on Friday night in the western Baghdad neighbourhood of Mansour killed six of his bodyguards, said the official, Ayad Khadim Sabti.
Police said more than a dozen other people were wounded in the blast.
Chalabi, a secular Shiite who was once viewed by Washington as a possible successor to Saddam Hussain, was on his way to his headquarters in the area when the bomb exploded.
After spending most of his life abroad, Chalabi returned to Iraq in 2003 and served in the 25-member Governing Council appointed by the American occupation authorities to run the country's day-to-day affairs.
He now is chairman of a commission responsible for keeping Saddam loyalists out of government posts, his office said, and is believed to have escaped several assassination attempts since 2003.
Dead and injured
Meanwhile, at least six people were killed and about 50 were injured on Saturday - including 19 in critical condition - when a suicide bomber attacked a market in Tal Afar, police and medical officials said.
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