BAGHDAD, April 20: Iraq’s caretaker prime minister Iyad Allawi escaped an assassination attempt on Wednesday night when a suicide bomber in a car attacked his convoy near his home, a government spokesman said. The attack killed one policeman and wounded four, the spokesman said. “He had attended an important meeting to discuss the formation of the government and was on his way back home when a car bomber blew himself up near the convoy as it approached the checkpoint,” said Naqib.

“Thank God, the prime minister is well, but some policemen and members of his security team were killed.”

The meeting was about forming Iraq’s cabinet and then headed to his house near his party headquarters when the suicide bomber struck, said the spokesman. Allawi was unhurt.

The attempt on his life came hours after Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said a new government was likely to be announced on Thursday, more than 11 weeks after Iraq’s historic elections.

Allawi, a former Baathist who escaped assassination by Saddam Hussein’s agents when he lived in exile in London, was seen as a tough prime minister, imposing emergency laws in a bid to crush Iraq’s insurgency.—Agencies