Iraqi MP, 4 others killed by bomb

Fayadh, 87, and his son were killed when "a vehicle packed with explosives and driven by a suicide bomber was detonated alongside his two-car convoy in Al-Rashidyah," an interior ministry source said.

Chief of the Albuamer, a powerful and predominantly Shia tribe, Fayadh had presided over the first sessions of Iraq's new parliament before a speaker was elected.

Sheikh Humam Hamudi, head of the parliamentary committee currently drafting a new constitution, told AFP: "Those who killed Sheikh al-Fayadh are criminals trying to destroy the country, and those trying to negotiate with these criminals do so with the enemies of Iraq."

He was referring to US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who has acknowledged contacts with some insurgent leaders.

"Sheikh Fayadh was a patriot, all know how loyal he was to his country. He loved Iraq," Hamudi said.

Fayadh was also lord of the mud huts around his gated villa complex in the orange and palm groves of his rural fiefdom in Diyala province just north of the capital.

He won election to the 275-member national assembly in landmark January polls after running as an independent in the victorious Shia-dominated United Iraqi Alliance.

The octogenarian was enjoying a political comeback after losing his parliamentary seat in 1958 when Iraqi army officers overthrew the British-backed monarchy.

In other Iraqi violence Tuesday:

- Three police commandos were killed and five injured in Samarra, north of Baghdad, when a homemade bomb blast slammed into their patrol, according to army Captain Hassan al Juburi.