Sister of Iraqi vice-president killed in drive-by shooting

SISTER of Iraq’s new Sunni Arab vice-president was killed in a drive-by shooting in Baghdad yesterday, a day after the politician called for the Sunni-dominated insurgency to be crushed by force.

Meanwhile, in southern Iraq, a bomb hit an Italian military convoy, killing four soldiers three Italians and a Romanian and seriously injuring another passenger, officials in Rome said.

The bomb struck the convoy near an Italian military base in Nasiriyah, a heavily Shi'ite city 200 miles southeast of Baghdad, said local Iraqi government spokesman Haidr Radhi.