Special report: Tension escalates in Iraq

    FALLUJAH, Iraq, July 5 (Xinhua) -- An Iraqi Sunni Arab politician escaped a bomb explosion with wounds in the city of Fallujah in Anbar province on Saturday, a local police source said.

    A roadside bomb detonated near the car of Khaled al-Ubeidi, head of the Iraqi Islamic Party in central Fallujah on Saturday morning, wounding him, his driver and a bystander, the source toldXinhua on condition of anonymity.

    The Iraqi Islamic Party, headed by Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, which is part of the Accordance Front, a major Sunni bloc in the Iraqi parliament.

    Fallujah, some 50 km west of Baghdad, has been relatively calm for more than a year after Sunni tribes and anti-U.S. insurgent groups turned their rifles against al-Qaida in Iraq network and cooperated with the U.S. troops and Iraqi security forces.