Gunmen slay senior Iraqi judge

Gunmen have assassinated a senior Iraqi judge and killed his bodyguard today in a series of shootings of government employees and policemen that highlight grave security risks ahead in the run-up to this weekend’s elections.

Clashes erupted this morning in Baghdad’s eastern Rashad neighbourhood as Iraqi police fired on insurgents who were handing out leaflets warning people not to vote in Sunday’s national elections. Armed men attacked a police station in the neighbourhood and US troops intervened.

There was no word on casualties, but hospital officials said they were receiving many wounded from the area.

Yesterday, Iraqi authorities announced they had in custody an al-Qaida lieutenant who confessed to masterminding most of the car bombings in Baghdad, including the bloody 2003 assault on the UN headquarters in the capital.

The slain judge was identified as Qais Hashim Shameri, secretary general of the judges council in the Justice Ministry. Assailants sprayed his car with bullets in an attack that also wounded the judge’s driver.

Assailants also shot dead a man who worked for a district council in western Baghdad as he was on his way to work, police said.

In a third ambush, gunmen firing from a speeding car wounded three staff from the Communications Ministry as they were going to work. The three workers, one of them a woman with serious injuries, were rushed to a hospital.

Attackers also shot dead the son of an Iraqi translator working with US troops, police said.

A police colonel was also gunned down along with his five-year-old daughter yesterday as he was driving in southern Baghdad. Col. Nadir Hassan was in charge of police protection forces for electric power facilities in two provinces flanking the capital.

Insurgents have targeted scores of Iraqi interim government and polce officials in car bombings and drive-by shootings. Earlier this month, gunmen killed the governor of Baghdad province and the capital’s deputy police chief.