| A car bomb exploded Sunday near the home of Iraq's finance minister, killing one of his guards, officials said. The minister, Adil Abdel-Mahdi, was safe, a political associate said. The blast occurred near the minister's home in the upscale Karrada neighborhood, Interior Ministry spokesman Adnan Abdul-Rahman said. The blast sent a huge column of black spoke hundreds of feet into the hazy Baghdad sky. Haithem al-Husseini, a member of the minister's Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, said Abdel-Mahdi was safe but he refused to say if the minister was in the house at the time of the blast. Al-Husseini said one guard at the minister's home was killed. The French-educated Abdel-Mahdi is a leading member of the supreme council, a major Shiite party. |