Car Booby-Trap Kills Iraqi Airlines Official

A booby-trap bomb killed Iraqi Airlines’ Cyprus manager Friday, moments after another bomb hit the airline’s office in a fashionable shopping district of Nicosia.

Cyprus radio said an unidentified person phoned the manager at his home to tell him of the explosion, which caused considerable damage to the building housing the airline office and to nearby structures. The manager, Walid Ibrahim, 45, rushed out to his car and was killed by an explosion as he opened the door.

Later, an anonymous caller telephoned the Associated Press office in Bahrain, claiming responsibility for the blasts on behalf of the pro-Syrian Eagles of the Revolution organization. The caller, speaking in Arabic, accused the airline of operating “an undercover Iraqi intelligence center in Cyprus.”