BAGHDAD, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) -- Leading Shiite clergyman, Ammar al-Hakim, escaped an assassination attempt during Muslim's Eid al-Fitr holiday last week, a Baghdad newspaper reported on Tuesday.

    "The assassin was detained when he tried to blow up a booby-trapped cigarette packet during Hakim's reception for well-wishers after the Eid prayers on Monday last week," Mohammed Naji, a lawmaker and a leading member in Hakim's Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council (SIIC), was cited by al-Mashrriq newspaper as saying.

    He was discovered by SIIC's security men shortly before executing his attempt, the report said.

    Al-Hakim accused activists of Iraq's former ruling Baath Party and al-Qaida of being behind the abortive assassination attempt, adding that the assassin had confessed to planning to kill al-Hakim and a number of other political leaders.

    Ammar al-Hakim, son of the powerful politician Abdel Aziz al-Hakim who died of lung cancer late August, succeeded his father as leader of Iraq's largest Shiite party.

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