Sister of Iraq’s New Sunni Arab VP Murdered

Terrorists have murdered the sister of on of Iraq’s vice presidents.

A sister of Iraq’s new Sunni Arab vice president was killed Thursday in a drive-by shooting in Baghdad, a day after the politician called for the Sunni-dominated insurgency to be crushed by force.

[…]

Mayson Ahmed Bakir al-Hashimi, 60, whose brother, Tariq al-Hashimi, was appointed by parliament as vice president on Saturday, was killed by unidentified gunmen in a BMW sedan as she was leaving her home Thursday morning with her bodyguard in southwestern Baghdad, said police Capt. Jamel Hussein. The bodyguard, Saad Ali, also died in the shooting, Hussein said.

It was the second recent killing in Tariq al-Hashimi’s immediate family. On April 13, his brother, Mahmoud al-Hashimi, was shot while driving in a mostly Shiite area of eastern Baghdad.

[…]

It was not immediately possible to contact the vice president, but Ziyad al-Ani, a senior official in the Iraqi Islamic Party, condemned the attackers. “What astonished us is that they targeted a woman. This shows how wicked the attackers are,” al-Ani told The Associated Press. He said the killings “by the enemies of Iraq” will fail in their goal of driving al-Hashimi and his party away from the country’s new government.

One would hope. Certainly, al-Hashimi has paid a terrible price for his commitment to the fledgling democracy.

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James Joyner
About James Joyner
James Joyner is Professor and Department Head of Security Studies at Marine Corps University's Command and Staff College. He's a former Army officer and Desert Storm veteran. Views expressed here are his own. Follow James on Twitter @DrJJoyner.

Comments

  1. DC Loser says:

    Too many “usual suspects” at work here. The Zarqawi people certainly at the top of the list. Also could be other Sunnis not affiliated with AQI that oppose Sunni involvement in the government, or Shiite militias opposed to Sunnis in power.

  2. DaveD says:

    Is this what passes for “macho” in the Muslim world?

  3. Roger says:

    Why can’t Bush get the MSM to stop committing these horrible deeds?