Iraqi deputy PM wounded in suicide bombing

Iraq's Sunni deputy prime minister was wounded Friday in a suicide bombing near the heavily fortified Green Zone. Eight other people were killed, including one of his advisers, police said.

The bomber blew himself up as Salam al-Zubaie, one of two deputies to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, and other worshippers were leaving a mosque in the courtyard of his house, according to police and a Sunni politician.

U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Christopher Garver said al-Zubaie was in a hospital run by the U.S. in the Green Zone but would not comment on his condition.

However, an official in al-Maliki's office said the prime minister visited al-Zubaie. "He's wounded but it's not serious," the official told Reuters.

Brig. Qassim al-Mousawi, an Iraqi military spokesman, said al-Zubaie was undergoing surgery, while Ziad al-Ani, a top official of the Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party, said al-Zubaie was slightly wounded in the leg.

Police said a car parked nearby exploded at about the same time.  Police said eight people were killed, including an adviser, and 11 others were wounded, including five of al-Zubaie's bodyguards. The adviser, Mufeed Abdul-Zahra, was wounded in the attack and died later at the hospital.

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Conflict over timing
There were conflicting accounts about the exact timing of the attack. Police said it occurred as worshippers were leaving, while al-Ani said the bomber blew himself up inside the mosque during the traditional weekly prayer service.

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Baghdad authorities have imposed a weekly four-hour vehicle ban on Fridays to protect the services from suicide car bombers.

The mosque was built inside the courtyard of al-Zubaie's compound in a residential area behind the Foreign Ministry, but worshippers can access it from the street outside, al-Ani said. The compound is near the Green Zone, which houses the U.S. and British embassies and the Iraqi government headquarters.

The attack came a day after a rocket landed in the Green Zone as U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and al-Maliki were holding a joint press conference.