BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The governor of Muthanna province in southern Iraq was killed by a roadside bomb in the city of Samawa Monday morning, an official with Iraq's Interior Ministry said.
The wreckage of a motorcycle that exploded in Rusafi square in Baghdad.
Mohammed Ali al-Hassani was traveling with his bodyguards when the attack took place around 9 a.m. (1 a.m. ET).
The governor was a member of the Supreme Islamic Council in Iraq, the largest Shiite political group in parliament led by politician Abdul Aziz al-Hakim.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki quickly condemned the governor's killing and those who carried it out.
"Those who stand behind this heinous crime want to drown the province in chaos and insecurity as an implementation of the agenda that does not want good for the sons of our people," Maliki said.
In a similar attack on August 11, Qadisiya province Gov. Khalil Jalil Hamza and Brig .Gen. Khalid Abed Hassan, the provincial police chief, were killed in a roadside bombing. Three of the governor's bodyguards were also killed and three others were wounded.
Muthanna is one of several southern provinces in Iraq that British forces have returned to Iraqi military control since the start of the war.
Meanwhile, at least one person was killed and three others injured when a mortar hit eastern Baghdad's Amin neighborhood Monday at midday, an Interior Ministry official said.
A few hours earlier, three people were killed and 11 injured in the Rusafi district of central Baghdad when a motorcycle rigged with explosives blew up, the ministry said.
Other developments:
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