A suicide car bomber has hit the checkpoint protecting the house of the major Iraqi Shia leader, Ayatollah Abdul Aziz Hakim, on Saturday in Baghdad, killing a policeman and wounding four more.

According to AFP, the attacker struck the first barrier protecting an access road leading from Al-Hussein Square in downtown Baghdad's Jadriyah district towards Hakim's fortified compound.


"He tried to break through the first barrier towards Hakim's house. The guards opened fire on him and he blew himself up, killing one of them and wounding four," AFP quoted an interior ministry official as saying.

Ayatollah Hakim's son was detained by U.S. forces a day earlier and held in custody for 12 hours. As a response, Iraqis on Saturday took to the streets of different cities in Iraq and protested over the detention by U.S. troops.

Hakim is the leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), one of the two biggest Shia parties in Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government.


MA/KB