Council chief assassinated in Iraq

Fallujah city council’s chairman, a critic of al-Qaida who took the job after his three predecessors were assassinated, was killed in the latest blow in Iraq’s violent internal Sunni struggle for control of a militant stronghold west of Baghdad.

Sami Abdul-Amir al-Jumaili, 65, a Sunni sheikh, was gunned down by attackers in a passing car outside his home in central Fallujah, 40 miles west of Baghdad.

His assassination came just a month after he took on the dangerous job, promising to improve services and work with the Americans to ease traffic-clogging checkpoints in the city with a population of an estimated 150,000 to 200,000.