BAGHDAD — An American journalist for National Public Radio and three Iraqi colleagues escaped injury Sunday when a bomb attached to their car exploded as it was parked along a street in west Baghdad.
Ivan Watson, a 33-year-old reporter for NPR on temporary assignment in Iraq, said he had gone to interview people in a kebab cafe a few yards from an Iraqi army checkpoint.
Watson, who is normally based in Istanbul, Turkey, was accompanied by producer and translator Ali Hamdani and two drivers who refused to be named for security reasons.
The group returned to their armored car, which was parked out front, about 45 minutes later but were stopped by Iraqi soldiers who said they had been informed minutes earlier that a bomb was attached to the car, Watson said.
The bomb, which had been placed underneath the driver’s side, exploded about 15 feet from the NPR journalists. It destroyed the car, but nobody was injured, according to NPR.
Iraqi and American soldiers, who cordoned off the area, said the bomb was possibly detonated by remote control.
The Iraqi soldiers said they had arrested a suspect, an egg vendor who had suspected family links to a member of al-Qaeda in Iraq.
The soldiers spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
In a statement issued in Washington, NPR expressed gratitude for the “swift actions by Iraqi authorities” in warning its employees about the bomb and preventing them from entering the vehicle.
Also Sunday, United Nations and Iraqi officials revealed a plan to make Iraq’s January elections more transparent and fair. The elections are expected to be heated races for control of the nation’s provincial governments.
The Jan. 31 elections will differ from Iraq’s 2005 contests in one major respect. This time, candidates’ names will appear on the ballot instead of lists of political parties.
“That’s what you are going to see — people,” said U.N. Special Representative Steffan de Mistura, holding up a blue sample ballot. “You will put faces to the people, and you will vote for them if you feel comfortable with them.”
Iraq concealed the identities of candidates in the previous election as a safety measure.
McClatchy Newspapers contributed to this report.
