13 killed in sucide car blast at Shia party HQ

Later on Monday, in a move repeatedly hinted at in recent weeks, the Iraqi Islamic Party, a leading force among the Sunni minority, said it was withdrawing from the poll because violence in Sunni areas meant it would not be free or fair. ‘‘We are withdrawing,’’ party leader Mohsen Abdel Hamid told a news conference. ‘‘We are not calling for a boycott, but we said we would take part only if certain conditions had been met and they have not,’’ he said, 34 days before the planned vote.

Victims of the bombing, in which police said about 50 people were wounded, included several receptionists and guards at SCIRI’s headquarters. None of the party leadership was hurt.

The office is also home to party leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, who was there at the time. He called it an assassination attempt but said SCIRI’s thousands-strong militia would not retaliate.‘‘We have chosen the path of non-violence and we will stick to it,’’ he told Reuters from his devastated compound.

‘‘The only ideology these people know is terror. We laid down our arms in favour of pluralism. If we wanted violence we would have responded a long time ago.’’

The SCIRI leader blamed the attack on a Sunni insurgent alliance of former Saddam loyalists and Islamists. —Reuters