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Iraqi Deputy Foreign Minister Killed
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Gunmen ambushed and killed an Iraqi deputy foreign minister as he went to his Baghdad office Saturday, the Foreign Ministry said.
The assailants shot Bassam Salih Kubba in Baghdad's Azimiyah district, a
Sunni Muslim neighborhood where support for Saddam Hussein (news
- web
sites)'s regime had been strong. He died later of his wounds, said Thamir
al-Adhami, the Foreign Ministry spokesman.
Kubba, 60, was one of several deputy foreign ministers, and was responsible
for legal issues. He was the ministry's most senior career diplomat.
He served as the acting chief of the Iraqi mission to the United Nations (news
- web
sites) in New York and as the Iraqi ambassador to China. Kubba also served
on the committee which ran the ministry after the fall of Saddam's regime.
He held a master's degree in international relations from St. John's
University in New York.
The attack was the second on members of the interim government in the last
four days.
On Wednesday, the deputy health minister, Ammar al-Safar, escaped an
assassination attempt in the Azimiyah area while he was in his way to the Health
Ministry. Al-Safar's guards exchanged fire with the attackers, who opened fire
on his car and then fled the scene.
The ambush followed attacks on other senior leaders, including the head of
the Governing Council, Izzadine Saleem, who was assassinated May 17 in a suicide
car-bombing as he waited to enter the heavily guarded Green Zone, the Baghdad
headquarters of the U.S.-run occupation authority.
A group believed led by al-Qaida-linked terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
claimed responsibility for the slaying.
Another senior member of the former Governing Council, Aquila al-Hashemi, was
mortally wounded in September during an ambush near her Baghdad home.
Gunmen ambushed a convoy carrying a member of the former Governing Council,
Salama al-Khafaji, while she was traveling home to Baghdad after meetings in the
southern city of Najaf on May 27. The council member survived but one of her
bodyguards and her son were killed. The Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni, Uganda is in anarchy" Groupe de communication Mulindwas "avec Yoweri Museveni, l'Ouganda est dans l'anarchie" |
