The investigating committee in the Iraqi Council of Representatives said today that it was obliged to present an incomplete report about the bombing that targeted the Council of Representatives, adding that investigations are still ongoing to find the perpetrators.
Vice chairman of the committee Alexander Wattout said: "There's secret confidential information about the investigation, but members of the Council of Representatives pressed toward the reading of the report, which is incomplete until now.

"The investigation is ongoing and the party behind the bombing is not yet revealed."

Baghdad Operations Command announced after the car bombing on November 28 last year that it would announce the results of the investigation within 72 hours, but this did not happen.

"We made a mistake by identifying a date to announce the results of investigation, because the results of DNA tests do not appear before 15 days and the arrest warrants require five days," added Wattout.

The car bomb was detonated in front of the Council of Representatives. One person inside the car was killed and two more were injured. The owners of the car were arrested, said Wattout.

The Islamic State of Iraq, which belongs to al-Qaeda, said in a statement published on jihadist websites: "The checkpoints scattered around and within the region, surveillance cameras or remote-controlled aircraft or dogs didn't prevent him [the suicide bomber].

"His goal was to target the head the Safavid Iranian project," referring to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

The security and defense committee in the Iraqi Council of Representatives said previously that the committee created to investigate the circumstances of the bombing would reveal the party that allowed the entrance of the car bomb to the Green Zone, where most of the government offices and foreign diplomatic organizations are housed.

Al-Qaeda considers any Iraqi politician involved in government as a legitimate target for murder, including Sunni Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi.

After the bombing, Iraq's interior ministry presented the confessions of three members of Hashemi's protection squad, in which they stated that Hashemi assigned them to carry out assassinations and detonate explosive devices from 2009 onwards.

The ministry pledged to reveal all of the protection group's confessions at the end of the investigation process.

The Iraqi Supreme Judiciary Council issued an arrest order for Hashemi on December 19 on terrorism charges after his guards confessed the VP was involved in series of attacks. Hashemi denied the charges and fled to Kurdistan, where he is currently under the protection of Iraqi Kurdistan regional officials.





AKnews