Gunmen kill aide to Iraq's most influential cleric; car bomb explodes at al-Jaafari party office

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Gunmen killed an aide to Iraq's most influential Shiite cleric and two bodyguards in a drive-by shooting outside a Baghdad mosque Friday — an attack likely to stoke tensions between the Shiite majority and the Sunni minority, officials said.

Elsewhere in the capital, a car bomb exploded near a checkpoint outside offices of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari's Islamic Dawa Party, killing one person and injuring at least four more, officials said. Al-Jaafari was not there at the time, party official Ayad al-Nedawi said.

Shiite cleric Kamal Ezz al-Deen al-Ghuraifi, an aide to leading Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, was shot as he was about to leave al-Doreen mosque after leading prayers, according to his son, Hamid Kamal. Police Lt. Thair Mahmoud confirmed the attack.

"Gunmen in a speeding car sprayed him with machine guns," Mahmoud said.

Two bodyguards were killed and another four were wounded, he said.

Al-Ghuraifi, in his 60s, had been a Baghdad representative of al-Sistani for the past decade, said Amer al-Hussaini, a friend of al-Ghuraifi's and a member of al-Hawza al-Ilmiyah, the Shiites' ancient seminary in the southern city of Najaf.

It was the third attack on al-Sistani aides in recent weeks.

Last week, gunmen killed Samir al-Baghdadi, who represented al-Sistani in Baghdad's predominantly Shiite al-Amin district. In May, attackers assassinated Shiite cleric Mohammed Tahir al-Allaq, al-Sistani's representative in the Jurf al-Nadaf area near Madain, about 14 miles southeast of Baghdad.

"These attacks are aimed at stoking sectarian tensions between Iraqis," al-Hussaini said.

Separately, five masked gunmen stormed a Sunni mosque in the same neighborhood and kidnapped an imam, Sheik Amer al-Tikriti, during Friday prayers, police 1st Lt. Mohammed al-Hiyani said.

A Sunni-dominated insurgency has killed about 1,380 people — mostly civilians and Iraqi forces — since Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari announced his Shiite-dominated government April 28.

Islamic extremists, such as Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his al-Qaida in Iraq group, are determined to start a civil war by attacking Iraqi security forces and members of the country's Shiite majority.