Saber al-Essawi became the fourth senior Iraqi official to step down since demonstrations erupted nationwide a month ago.

"I present my resignation and I hope that a new mayor will be chosen to complete the process of reconstruction and development of the capital," he said in a statement.

Essawi, who has held his post for five years and is a member of the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council, a religious Shiite Muslim political party, did not offer any reason for his decision in the statement.

The Iraqi premier always appoints Baghdad mayors and Nuri al-Maliki will need now to find a replacement for Essawi.

His resignation comes after 5,000 people took to the streets of central Baghdad's Tahrir Square on Friday to rail against a lack of improvement in their lives, eight years after the US-led invasion to oust Saddam Hussein.

The rally was one of 17 separate protests nationwide on the day.

Clashes stemming from demonstrations across the country in February left 22 protesters and one policeman dead, with another major rally planned for Friday.

The protests have so far led to the resignations of the governors of the southern provinces of Wasit, Basra and Babil, all elected to their posts in January 2009 as members of Maliki's State of Law coalition.

Essawi last year launched a $425-million programme to beautify the capital and notably to improve Baghdad's airport road, once the most dangerous thoroughfare in the world.

earlier related report
Suicide bomb attack kills nine at Iraq bank: mayor
Ramadi, Iraq (AFP) March 3, 2011 - A suicide bomber blew himself up inside a bank in the northwestern Iraqi city of Haditha on Thursday, killing nine people, including three policemen, the town's mayor said.

Eight other people, all civilians, were wounded in the midday blast at a branch of the state-owned Al-Rafidain bank in Haditha, Mayor Bassim Naji said.

"Nine people have been killed in the suicide attack at Al-Rafidain bank," Naji told reporters.

A police major in the town said that, along with the three policemen, five male civilians and one woman were killed. He said two women were among the wounded.

"The explosion happened at about midday when the bank was filled with people," the major said. "The suicide bomber entered and blew himself up among the people."

The blast in Haditha was the first major attack in the town since October 5, 2009, when a suicide bomber killed five people at a funeral. And on August 2 of that year, a car bomb in the town killed four women and three children.

Haditha is in the western Sunni Arab province of Anbar. It was one of several towns along the Euphrates valley that became Al-Qaeda strongholds after the 2003 US-led invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein.

However, since 2006, local Sunni tribes have sided with the US military, and unrest has dwindled in Anbar as rebel fighters have been ejected from the region.

Also on Thursday, a group of armed men entered the house of tribal chief Ali Jabban in Tal Afar, and shot him dead before fleeing, a police officer in the northern town said.

And in the central town of Muqdadiyah, an anti-Qaeda militiaman was killed and four people, including his wife, were wounded when gunmen opened fire on his family in front of their home in the restive town, according to a security official.

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