By Mariam Karouny and Aseel Kami
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A member of parliament from anti-American cleric Moqtada al Sadr's bloc was killed by a bomb in Baghdad on Thursday, in an attack that some feared may herald a wave of assassinations before provincial elections.
A statement from Sadr's political office condemned the killing of Saleh al-Ugaili, who died in a Baghdad hospital of wounds he suffered when a blast struck his car in the Habibiya district of eastern Baghdad.
U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker and military commander General Ray Odierno also condemned Ugaili's killing, labelling it an "attack against Iraq's democratic institutions."
Hours after Ugaili's death, clashes broke out between Iraqi and U.S. forces and gunmen in Baghdad's Sadrist stronghold of Sadr City, but casualty details were not immediately available, police said. The U.S. military said it was checking the reports.
Fighter jets had been deployed and there had been several roadside bomb explosions, police said, adding that there were reports fighters loyal to Sadr had been deployed in the area.
It was not clear who was behind the attack on Ugaili, but Bahaa al-Araji, another Shi'ite MP from Sadr's bloc, described it as an assassination and said the attack occurred a few metres from an Iraqi army checkpoint.
He said the Sadrist bloc, which has 30 seats in the 275-seat parliament, had called for an investigation.
"We are not excluding the possibility that it might be a government-linked group which carried it out," he said.
"The area where he was killed is 100-percent controlled by the government," he added without elaborating.
Araji said the attack on Ugaili should be seen in the context of forthcoming provincial elections and a security agreement Iraq and the United States are close to concluding.
Earlier on Thursday, a police source said a bomb hidden on a motorbike exploded as Ugaili's convoy was driving past. He said two bodyguards were also killed.
VIOLENCE BEFORE POLLS
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a Shi'ite, issued a statement condemning the attack and called for an investigation.
Ugaili was in his late 30s and held a doctorate in history. He had been a professor at a Baghdad university.
Sadr's military wing, the Mehdi Army, has launched several uprisings against U.S. forces since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 and has fought rival Shi'ite factions.
There are doubts over the degree of control Sadr wields over the militia, which was accused of being infiltrated by rogue elements that carried out bombings, assassinations and sectarian killings following the pivotal bombing of a revered Shi'ite shrine in Samarra in 2006.
Sadr, believed to be in the Iranian city of Qom pursuing Islamic studies, in August extended indefinitely a cease-fire for the Mehdi Army.
Iraq plans to hold provincial elections by the end of January, seen as a test of the political influence wielded by the competing parties.
U.S. and Iraqi officials say they are close to concluding negotiations on a security pact that will govern the U.S. troop presence in Iraq beyond the end of the year.
Major-General Michael Oates, U.S. commander in southern Iraq, said U.S. forces in Iraq feared a wave of assassinations before the polls.
"I personally believe we will see an uptick in that sort of violence as we go into an elections cycle because that is flatly the way some people deal with their political problems here, by eliminating their opponents," he told reporters.
(Writing by Mariam Karouny; Editing by Charles Dick)