Iraq council member ambushed

2004-05-28 08:23

Hamza Hendawi

Baghdad - Gunmen ambushed a convoy carrying a member of the Iraqi Governing Council as she was returning on Thursday to Baghdad from mediation efforts in Najaf. The council member survived but at least one bodyguard was killed and her son was missing, aides said.

Salama al-Khafaji was in a three-vehicle convoy that came under fire in the town of Yusufiyah. A bodyguard was killed and another was critically wounded, according to chief aide Fateh Kashef al-Ghataa.

He said the car carrying al-Khafaji's 18-year-old son, Ahmed Fadel, plunged into an irrigation canal, and survivors said they saw him swimming away. However, he was still missing, Kashef al-Ghataa said.

He said US troops sealed off the area while search parties looked for the missing son.

Everyone fought

"Everyone fought the attackers, including Ahmed," Kashef al-Ghataa said.

The ambush occurred 10 days after the head of the Governing Council, Izzadine Saleem, was assassinated in a suicide car-bombing as he waited to enter the heavily guarded Green Zone, the Baghdad headquarters of the US-run occupation authority.

However, the attack against al-Khafaji took place in an area notorious for ambushes and car hijackings, and it was unclear whether she was specifically targeted. Vehicle convoys are especially vulnerable to such attacks because Iraqis associate them with civilian contractors and security agents working for the occupation.

Al-Khafaji is one of three women on the Governing Council. She replaced another Shiite woman member, Aquila al-Hashemi, who was killed in September during an ambush near her Baghdad home.

Al-Khafaji was among several Shiite council members who travelled to Najaf on Thursday to help nail down a deal to stop the fighting in the holy city between US soldiers and Shiite militiamen loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

Rising star

A professor of dentistry at Baghdad University, al-Khafaji has been a rising star on the Iraqi political scene since she joined the Governing Council in December.

Her conservative dress - a black chador that covers her entire body except for the face - makes her an exception among professional women in Iraq, most of whom wear headscarves or no traditional Islamic covering at all.

She recently said that she objected to military solutions to the standoff with al-Sadr or the fighting between Sunni insurgents and US Marines in the city of Fallujah west of Baghdad.

On Wednesday, she said that she planned to continue working on "the Iraqi street" after the demise of the Governing Council on June 30, when a transitional government is scheduled to take over from the US-led coalition.

"I have always worked on the street with the masses. Joining the Governing Council helped me help people more," she said.

She also suggested that she would run for a seat in parliament in the general election due to be held by January 31.

- AP