Al-Hashimi moved to secret location after attack
The Iraqi Governing Council member today targeted in an assassination attempt has been moved to a secret location after surgery.
Aquila al-Hashimi was shot and critically wounded in an assassination attempt outside her home in western Baghdad.
After surgery she was moved to an unspecified location in a convoy of American armoured vehicles and military ambulances.
Three of her bodyguards were also injured, said Mohammed Abdul Ghany, a security official at the al-Yarmouk hospital.
Al-Hashimi, a Shiite Muslim and career diplomat, is the only official of the regime of ousted President Saddam Hussein to have been appointed to the council and the only one to have been targeted for assassination.
One of only three women on the 25-member council, al-Hashimi was preparing to leave for New York as part of an Iraqi delegation that will attempt to assume Iraq’s seat at the UN General Assembly.
Members of al-Hashimi’s security detail said the attack was carried out by men in two new SUVs. They fired rocket-propelled grenades that missed her car, then opened fire with Kalashnikov assault rifles.
An Iraqi security official said al-Hashimi was driven to the hospital at about 10.30am. and was immediately taken to surgery for a bullet wound in the left side of her abdomen.
She was then driven to an unknown location in a US military ambulance while still unconscious, said the official.
L. Paul Bremer, the US civilian administrator for Iraq, said he was “shocked and saddened by this horrific and cowardly act.”
“This senseless attack is not just against the person of Aquila al-Hashimi. It is an attack against the people of Iraq and against the common goals we share for the establishment of a fully democratic government,” Bremer said in a statement.
While at the al-Yarmouk facility, fellow council member Ahmad Chalabi arrived. He was joined by Health Minister Dr. Khudayer Abbas Chalabi, who is council president for September.
A neighbour of al-Hashimi, Khola Ibrahim, said she was in her kitchen when she “heard shooting, very heavy shooting.”
Another neighbour, Saba Adel, said al-Hashimi’s brother – who acted as one of her bodyguards – knocked on her door crying out “My sister, my sister”
Adel said she saw another bodyguard lying on the sidewalk wounded in the arm and leg.
“He looked in a terrible condition,” she said.
It was the latest in a string of attacks on figures perceived to be collaborating with Iraq’s American occupiers. Fighters believed to be loyal to Saddam are trying to disrupt the US-sponsored political process that envisages a new constitution and a democratically elected government by the end of next year.
Last month, a Shiite Muslim leader, Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, was assassinated in a bomb blast in the holy city of Najaf, south of Baghdad. The attack, widely thought to be the work of Saddam supporters, killed at least 85 people.
Al-Hakim’s Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the biggest anti-Saddam opposition group, was represented on the Governing Council.
The attack on al-Hashimi underscored the precarious security situation in the country four months after President George W. Bush declared an end to major combat in Iraq. The spiral of violence, including near-daily attacks against US forces, have raised doubts about US strategy in postwar Iraq.
