Iraq Official Shot in Assassination Try
Saturday, September 20, 2003
(3:05 PM ET)
By Tarek al-Issawi
Associated Press Writer
The Bush administration is trying to get a U.N. resolution appealing to countries to send troops and funds to help in reconstruction and security. France and other nations, however, want the resolution also to give more control to the United Nations and set a timetable for handing power to Iraqis, possibly within months. Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed similar concerns Saturday in an interview with U.S. media, and he said the on-going violence proves Russia's contention months ago that going to war would worsen international security. “The conflict continues; Islamic extremists who weren't there before are more and more frequently infiltrating Iraqi territory,†he said.
The sister of Aquila al-Hashimi, who refused to give her name, cries as she arrives at the scene of an assasination attempt on Aquila al-Hashimi, Saturday Sept. 20, 2003. Al-Hashimi, one of three women on Iraq's Governing Council, was shot in the abdomen and critically wounded Saturday in an assassination attempt outside her home in west Baghdad.
Image Credit: Samir Mezban -- AP
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- AP
Six gunmen firing assault weapons from a Toyota pickup truck chased a member of Iraq's Governing Council in her car and seriously wounded her in the first assassination attempt targeting the U.S.-created leadership body.
The brazen, daytime attack was against Aquila al-Hashimi, one of three women on the council, a Shiite Muslim and a strong candidate to become Iraq's representative at the United Nations.
Al-Hashimi had been preparing to leave for a key U.N. General Assembly meeting in New York on Tuesday. Major U.S. allies are pressing for Washington to give the United Nations a greater role in bringing stability to this fractured country.
The Governing Council president blamed Saddam Hussein loyalists for the shooting. U.S.-led forces have been struggling to put fown a guerrilla-style insurgency that has targeted Americans and Iraqis who work with them and has hampered reconstruction.
The attack came at 9 a.m. when gunmen fired a rocket-propelled grenade on al-Hashimi's car soon after she left her house in western Baghdad, members of her security detail said. The grenade missed, and the attackers opened fire with assault rifles.
Al-Hashimi, critically wounded in the abdomen, was rushed to the al-Yarmouk Hospital for surgery and was later moved in a convoy of American armored vehicles and military ambulances to the U.S. military hospital at Baghdad International Airport. Three of her bodyguards were also wounded.
There, she was reported in stable condition. “She is fine,†said Haitham al-Husseini, an adviser to council member Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim, a fellow Shiite.
Firas Shams al-Din, 30, a security guard at a school near where the shooting occurred, said a white Toyota pickup truck carrying six bearded men armed with Kalashnikovs - as well as a black Mercedes and a blue sedan - chased al-Hashimi's vehicle.
When Shams al-Din opened fire on the pickup, the three vehicles of attackers turned around and fled. Al-Hashimi's car crashed through the gate of a private home's compound at the end of the street and into a car parked inside.
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2003 © The Associated Press.
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Iraq Official Shot in Assassination Try . . .