Sister of new Iraqi vice president killed
BAGHDAD, Iraq — A sister of Iraq's new Sunni Arab vice president was killed today in a drive-by shooting in Baghdad, a day after the politician called for the Sunni-dominated insurgency to be crushed by force.
The violence came as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld were visiting Baghdad to meet with officials in the new Iraqi government. Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite hard-liner recently tapped as Iraq's prime minister, is trying to form a new national unity government aimed at stopping a wave of sectarian violence in Iraq.
Al-Maliki has 30 days to assemble a Cabinet from divided Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish parties. The most contentious question will be filling key ministries that control security forces amid demands to purge them of militias blamed for the rise in sectarian bloodshed.
Mayson Ahmed Bakir al-Hashimi, 60, whose brother, Tariq al-Hashimi, was appointed by parliament as vice president on Saturday, was killed by unidentified gunmen in a BMW sedan as she was leaving her home this morning with her bodyguard in southwestern Baghdad, said police Capt. Jamel Hussein. The bodyguard, Saad Ali, also died in the shooting, Hussein said.
It was the second recent killing in Tariq al-Hashimi's immediate family. On April 13, his brother, Mahmoud al-Hashimi, was shot while driving in a mostly Shiite area of eastern Baghdad.
"What astonished us is that they targeted a woman. This shows how wicked the attackers are," a spokesman said. He said the killings "by the enemies of Iraq" will fail in their goal of driving al-Hashimi and his party away from the country's new government.
The party is one of three major Sunni political groups in the Iraqi Accordance Front which won 44 seats in the Dec. 15 parliamentary election.
On Wednesday, Tariq al-Hashimi called for Iraq's insurgency to be put down by force. Shiites had demanded that Sunni officials make such a statement as a show of their commitment to building a democratic system.
Al-Hashimi also shrugged off a videotape released this week by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, during which the al-Qaida in Iraq leader tried to rally Sunnis to fight the new government and denounced Sunnis who cooperate with it as "agents" of the Americans.
"I say, yes, we're agents. We're agents for Islam, for the oppressed. We have to defend the future of our people," al-Hashimi said at a news conference with President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, and his fellow vice president, Shiite Adil Abdul-Mahdi.
All three Iraqi leaders met with Rice and Rumsfeld on Wednesday.
Today, al-Hashimi and Abdul-Mahdi were to meet in the holy city of Najaf with Iraq's most powerful Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.
The reclusive Sistani, who lives in Najaf, 100 miles south of Baghdad, has played a big role in restraining Shiite anger in the face of Sunni insurgent attacks that have pushed Iraq toward a sectarian civil war. Top politicians often seek Sistani's advice.
today's drive-by shooting raised to 110 the number of Iraqi civilians or police who have been killed in insurgency- or sectarian-related violence since al-Maliki was tapped as Iraq's prime minister designate on Saturday and asked to form a new government.
Insurgents have targeted prominent men and women politicians in the past.
On April 17, the brother of another leading Sunni politician, Saleh al-Mutlaq, was found dead in Baghdad after he was kidnapped.
Aqeela al-Hashimi, a member of the Governing Council put together by the United States before the return of sovereignty to the Iraqis, was killed by gunmen who sprayed her car with gunfire in September 2003. Her successor in the post, Salama al-Khafaji, survived several assassination attempts against her.
