Middle East News

Iraqi parliament building evacuated after bomb scare

Oct 3, 2009, 14:58 GMT

Baghdad - The Iraqi parliament was forced to postpone its Saturday session and evacuate the building after a bomb scare, the parliament said on its website.

Security officers in the building, located in the heavily- protected Green Zone area in Baghdad, detected a suspicious smell inside the main hall and cleared the building.

No bomb was found after the building was fully searched. However, it was too late to resume the session, the statement said.

During Saturday's session, the electricity minister had been scheduled to appear for questioning over corruption accusations.

In August, a series of explosions shook Baghdad, targeting government buildings in the Green Zone, such as the ministries of foreign affairs and finance. The attacks left around 100 people dead and 1,200 injured.

Meanwhile, a local official in western Iraq survived an assassination attempt on Saturday, police sources told the German Press Agency dpa.

Abdul Razaq Jubair, a mayor in Ramadi city, and two of his guards were injured after a bomb attached to his car exploded in central Ramadi, 100 km west of Baghdad, police added.

In separate developments, Iraqi troops have arrested 140 suspects in the past four days crackdown on the northern city of Mosul, spokesman of the Ministry of Defence said on Saturday.

'This operation targets al-Qaeda members and Baathists in the city and those who collaborate with them,' Mohammed al-Askari was quoted by Yaqen website as saying.

A local government official said that a hundred of the captured suspects were moved to jails in Baghdad, adding that the authorities are still looking for another 100 suspects.