Leading Iraqi Shiite gunned down

Gunmen have killed the representative of Iraq’s most senior Shiite Muslim cleric along with his son and four bodyguards in a town south of Baghdad.

Sheik Mohammed Finjan, representative of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in Salman Pak, 12 miles from the capital, was shot dead last night as he was returning home from a mosque where he performed the evening prayers, an official said.