New info on Maliki failed assassination

New details have been discovered by an Iraqi fact-finding mission about a November 2011 car bombing in Baghdad that apparently targeted Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a military official says.

Iraqi military spokesperson in Baghdad Major General Qassim Atta said on Tuesday that the mission would be announcing the results of its findings in the coming days.

On November 28, 2011 security officials said two people were killed in a car bombing at an Iraqi parliament parking lot inside Baghdad’s Green Zone.

Following the car bombing, Iraqi officials accused Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi of involvement in the attack. They also said that the target of the bombing was Parliament Speaker Osama Abdul Aziz al-Nujayfi.

However, on December 3, 2011 the Iraqi premier revealed that he had been the target of the bombing.

“The preliminary intelligence information says that the car was due to enter parliament and stay there and not to explode. It was supposed to explode on the day I entered parliament,” Maliki said.

On December 19, 2011 the Iraqi Interior Ministry issued an arrest warrant for Hashemi after three of his bodyguards made confessions of taking orders from him to carry out terrorist attacks in the country, including the car bombing in the parliament, over the past years.

Hashemi flew to Iraq’s Kurdistan region after his arrest warrant was issued. He has called for the referral of his case to the Kurdistan region, but Iraq’s judiciary has rejected his request.

Maliki has demanded President of the Kurdistan region Massoud Barzani and Iraqi President Jalal Talabani to hand Hashemi over to the Iraqi judiciary.