The head of the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council was killed this morning in a massive car bomb explosion near the U.S. occupation headquarters in Baghdad. The Washington Post reports 10 others died in the blast. Ezzedine Salim, became the second member of the Governing Council to have been killed over the past year. Salim was a Shiite leader as well as a writer, philosopher and political activist. The attack comes six weeks before the U.S. is scheduled to hand over limited sovereignty to a still-to-be-determined form of an Iraqi government on June 30th. News reports say it is unclear if the bombing was a targeted assassination. Salim was in a car waiting to enter the heavily fortified green zone when the bomb exploded.