Najaf - A roadside bomb some Iraqi officials blamed on Shi'a militants hit a convoy on Tuesday carrying the United Nations special envoy to Iraq, Ad Melkert, but he was unhurt, the United Nations said.
Police said the bomb damaged the second-to-last vehicle, an Iraqi SWAT car, in the UN-Iraqi police convoy as it was leaving the Shi'a holy city of Najaf, 160km south of Baghdad, killing one policeman and wounding three.
“The special representative was in the convoy. He is unhurt. He is fine,” a UN spokesperson in Baghdad said. “We cannot speculate on what was the motive.”
Melkert was in Najaf for a visit to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's most revered Shi'a Muslim cleric.
After the meeting, Melkert urged Iraq's political leaders to sit down and negotiate the formation of a coalition government without further delay, seven months after an inconclusive election yielded no outright winner, Sistani's office said.
The lingering political impasse has raised tensions in Iraq just as the sectarian slaughter between once-dominant Sunnis and majority Shi'as triggered after the 2003 US-led invasion fades, and US forces begin to gradually withdraw.
Overall violence in Iraq has fallen sharply but attacks by a stubborn Sunni Islamist insurgency and some Shi'a militia groups continue on a daily basis.
An Iraqi police officer in Najaf said an investigation had been opened into the attack.
“The initial investigation indicates that the hand of Asaib al-Haq was involved in the attack because they always call for the enemy (foreigners) to be targeted,” he said.
Shi'a militia Asaib al-Haq, or Leagues of Righteousness, which splintered from the Mehdi Army of anti-American Shi'a cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, frequently claims credit for attacking US forces and kidnapping foreign nationals.
UN spokesperson Farhan Haq told a daily UN news briefing in New York it was not clear if the UN envoy was specifically targeted.
“I think that would need to be investigated,” he said when asked. “We're looking into the matter right now.” - Reuters