Iraq's First Lady survives Baghdad bombing
Bomb hit her convoy injuring 4 of her bodyguards
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani's wife, Hero Ibrahim Ahmed, escaped a roadside bomb attack in the heart of Baghdad on Sunday that wounded her four bodyguards, officials said.
The First Lady escaped unhurt as her convoy was hit by a roadside bomb while on her way to the National Theatre in central Baghdad's Karrada district where she was to attend a cultural programme, Talabani's office said in a statement.
Her four bodyguards were wounded, officials said, adding that it appeared to be an indiscriminate attack in the tightly-guarded capital.
Ahmed is a daughter of well-known political activist Ibrahim Ahmed who was one of the founders of the Kurdish Democratic Party, a leading political group in northern Iraq.
Born in 1948, she graduated from Baghdad University and joined the peshmerga forces with Talabani whom she married in 1970. She is now a businesswoman, owns a media group called Kakh, and is a children's rights activist.
Sadr City clashes
Meanwhile, the U.S. military said its troops killed 13 Shiite fighters in overnight clashes in Baghdad's Sadr City, the stronghold of anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
The overnight clashes saw the military use tanks and air support in a series of exchanges with the militiamen in the district that is home to some two million Shiites.
The military also reported on Sunday the deaths of four U.S. marines in a roadside bombing in western Iraq's Anbar province on Friday, marking one of the deadliest attacks in months against them in the former Sunni rebel bastion.