Female Shiite MP survives assassination attempt

Gunmen today opened fire on a convoy carrying conservative Shiite MP Salamah al-Khafaji, one of the most prominent women in Iraq’s new parliament, critically injuring four of her bodyguards.

Al-Khafaji was driving from Baghdad to the Shiite holy city of Najaf, south of the capital, when the attempt took place, according to her spokesman. She was not injured.

“It was a motorcade of four cars driving to Najaf. They were subjected to gunfire and four of her guards were critically injured,” spokesman Bahaa Hassan Hamida said.

Insurgents have already killed one female MP. Lamia Abed Khadouri al-Sakri, a Shiite who belonged to former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi’s Iraqi List party, was gunned down in her home on April 27.

Al-Khafaji survived an assassination attempt in May 2004 that killed her 17-year-old son. She was one of only three women on the 25-member US-appointed Governing Council until the transitional Iraqi government took over last June. She then had a seat on a national council that oversaw the work of government and was elected to the National Assembly in January’s elections.

She was headed to Najaf to meet with radical anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who has sought to defuse tension between Sunnis and the majority Shiites after a recent series of sectarian killings. Sunnis are believed to make up the bulk of Iraq’s deadly insurgency.

The senior aides to al-Sadr met earlier in the week with the Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars, a key Sunni group, in a bid to soothe tensions that have flared and resulted in the deaths of 10 Shiite and Sunni clerics in the past two weeks.

“She survived unharmed the assassination attempt while she was heading to Najaf to meet Muqtada al-Sadr,” her office manager, Haidar al-Sabiri, said.