BAGHDAD, 13 June 2004 — Iraq’s deputy foreign minister was gunned down yesterday as he went to work and kidnappers killed a Lebanese and two of his Iraqi colleagues.
Bassam Salih Qubba, Iraq’s most senior career diplomat, was mortally wounded in Baghdad’s Azimiyah district, Foreign Ministry spokesman Thamir Al-Adhami said.
The attack “bears all the hallmarks of the supporters of Saddam Hussein’s evil regime,” the ministry said in a statement.
Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari said the government “will not be scared or intimidated by Saddamists”.
The attack on Qubba was the second assassination of a senior Iraqi figure in the past month. The head of the now-disbanded Iraqi Governing Council, Ezzadine Salim, was killed in a suicide car-bombing on May 17 at an entrance to the heavily guarded Green Zone headquarters of the US-run occupation authority.
Another Governing Council member, Salama Al-Khafaji, escaped injury in a May 27 ambush south of Baghdad but her son and chief bodyguard were killed. Council member Aquila Al-Hashemi, also a career diplomat, was assassinated last September.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Adhami said Qubba’s assailants had overtaken his car and fired as they drove past, fatally wounding the official in the waist.
Qubba was appointed to his post two months ago. He was a veteran career diplomat who served as ambassador to China during Saddam Hussein’s Baathist rule.
A Lebanese diplomat said kidnappers killed the Lebanese, Hussein Ali Alyan, 28, and two of his Iraqi colleagues, after seizing them in Baghdad on Thursday.
Foreign Ministry sources in Beirut said the bodies of the men, who worked for a Lebanese telecommunications company, had been dumped between Fallujah and Ramadi, west of the capital.
But the ordeal of seven Turks kidnapped in Fallujah five days ago ended in their release yesterday, a Turkish diplomat said. The seven employees of a Turkish contracting firm were in good health. There was no word on who had seized them or why.
Anti-US groups have kidnapped dozens of foreigners in Iraq since April. Many have been freed. Apart from Alyan, an Italian and an American hostage are known to have been killed. In other attacks yesterday, a roadside bomb wounded three Iraqi policemen and a civilian in Baquba, 65 km north of Baghdad. The US Army said two soldiers were wounded by a second roadside bomb outside the town.
Despite the violence, the government received an endorsement on Friday from an unlikely source — radical Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr. In a sermon read to his followers by an aide, Sadr said he was ready for a dialogue with the new government if it works to end the US military presence.
“I support the new interim government,” Sadr said. “Starting now, I ask you that we open a new page for Iraq and for peace.”
Iraq’s interim prime minister, Iyad Allawi, has promised tough action against Sadr if his Mehdi Army militia, which launched an anti-US revolt in April, pursues violence.
Sadr had previously denounced the interim government as a puppet of the United States.
Removing another cloud over Allawi’s government, Kurds have dropped their threat to leave it in protest at the failure of this week’s new UN resolution to mention Kurdish autonomy.
Kurdish, Turkmen and Christian leaders meeting in the northern city of Irbil on Friday decided the omission did not justify quitting the government.
The resolution’s US-British sponsors did not refer to a transitional law guaranteeing Kurdish autonomy to avoid antagonizing Iraq’s top Shiite cleric, Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, who dislikes the law and some of its contents.
In Baghdad, US officials said they were encouraged by the remarks from Sadr but noted he has made contradictory statements on the issue in recent weeks. US officials have warned of a major surge of violence in the run-up to the June 30 transfer of power. Although those predictions have so far not panned out, attacks on infrastructure and security installations suggest a campaign to undermine public confidence in the new Iraqi leadership.
