Death toll rose to nine late Friday in a double bomb attack that targeted Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Salam al-Zubaie, who escaped the attack but was injured and admitted to a US hospital, an Interior Ministry source said.

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"Our latest reports said that nine people were killed, including al-Zubaie's brother, and 15 others wounded," the source told Xinhua, adding his bodyguards and relatives including his brother, were among the killed.

 

Earlier the source put the toll at six killed and 15 others wounded.

 

A suicide bomber and a car bomb targeting al-Zubaie detonated after Friday prayers as he was leaving a mosque near his house in a heavily fortified area adjacent to the Green Zone in central Baghdad.

 

"The car detonated near al-Zubaie's house and the suicide bomber wearing an explosive-belt blew himself up at the mosque where al-Zubaie was observing the weekly prayers," the source said.

 

Al-Zubaie was evacuated to Ibn Sina Hospital run by US troops inside the Green Zone, the source said.

 

The Iraqi state-run television reported that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki visited al-Zubaie in the hospital without providing further details.

 

Al-Zubaie, one of the two deputies to al-Maliki, was elected to the parliament in December 2005 as part of the Sunni Arab-led Iraqi Consensus Front list.

 

(Xinhua News Agency March 24, 2007)