Diplomat assassination casts shadow on city mediation bid
Gunmen assassinated an Iranian diplomat in Baghdad just as Iran, with tacit US approval, attempted to mediate with radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr defying American forces in the southern Iraqi city of Najaf.
The killing of diplomat Khalil Naimi, shot in the head by unknown gunmen while he drove near his embassy, cast a shadow over the unusual negotiating mission to Najaf by the envoy from neighbouring Iran, which fought an eight-year war with Iraq in the 1980s and does not have diplomatic relations with Washington.
