Assassins kill Iraqi officials in 2 attacks

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Gunmen killed the cultural affairs officer for the Education Ministry today, the second attack on an Iraqi official in as many days, authorities said.

Attackers ambushed Kamal al-Jarah outside his home as he was leaving for work about 7:30 a.m. The attack took place in the Baghdad neighborhood of Ghazaliya, a predominantly Sunni Muslim neighborhood where support for Saddam Hussein’s regime had been strong.

U.S. convoys have often come under attack in the northwest Baghdad neighborhood. Al-Jarah died of his wounds at the Yarmouk Hospital, said Abdul Khaliq al-Amri, a ministry official.

The attack came only one day after gunmen firing from a car killed a deputy foreign minister as he went to work. Bassam Salih Kubba was Iraq’s most senior career diplomat.

Iraqi authorities blamed Saddam loyalists for Kubba’s death.

Kubba, 60, was slated to stay on in the new administration that takes over after June 30 from the U.S.-led occupation authority.

Kubba was mortally wounded when gunmen drove up behind his car in the city’s Azimiyah district and opened fire, Foreign Ministry spokesman Thamir al-Adhami said.

The assailants then passed the stricken vehicle and fired a second time, the spokesman said. Kubba’s driver escaped injury, but Kubba died in a hospital.

Azimiyah is a predominantly Sunni Muslim neighborhood where Saddam took refuge as American forces overran the city in April 2003, and support for the former regime runs strong there.

The Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the Saturday attack “bears all the hallmarks of leftover supporters of Saddam Hussein’s evil regime.”

Kubba and Al-Jarah were the second and third senior Iraqi figures to be killed in the past three weeks and the first since U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi appointed the new leadership to take power June 30.

Izzadine Saleem, who at the time headed the now-disbanded Iraqi Governing Council, was killed May 17 in a suicide car-bombing near the entrance to the heavily fortified Green Zone headquarters of the American-run occupation authority.

Ten days later, gunmen ambushed the convoy of another Governing Council member, Salama al-Khafaji, south of Baghdad, killing her son and her chief bodyguard.

The American-educated Kubba had served at the United Nations and as Iraq’s ambassador to China before his appointment to manage legal and multilateral affairs at the ministry.

He was part of a committee that managed the Foreign Ministry after the collapse of Saddam’s regime.

U.S. authorities had warned of escalating violence in the run-up to the sovereignty transfer as insurgents seek to undermine public confidence in the new administration.

The Americans hope that the establishment of a sovereign Iraqi government will take the steam out of the insurgency, allowing security to improve so that balloting for an elected administration can be held by the end of January.

Although the Iraqis will run their own affairs after June 30, about 150,000 U.S. and other coalition troops will remain in the country to help improve security under a U.N. resolution approved unanimously by the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday.

Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, deputy operations chief, said the Americans had no intention of withdrawing quickly from Baghdad and other cities despite the sovereignty transfer.

He said U.S. and other multinational forces would remain a visible force until Iraqis can ensure their own security.

In a sign of the continuing security crisis, a Lebanese Foreign Ministry official said a Lebanese construction worker, Hussein Ali Alyan, had been shot dead by kidnappers and his body was found Saturday near Fallujah.

On Saturday, seven Turkish contractors who had been abducted while working for a Turkish construction company were freed by their captors. A director of the company said “prominent families” in Iraq helped secure their release.

Also Saturday, the U.S. military announced plans to release 650 more prisoners Monday from the notorious Abu Ghraib prison, center of the abuse scandal.

A week ago, the U.S. Army freed 320 detainees, bringing down the number of inmates to about 3,100.