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Assassination attack on cleric leaves two dead in Baghdad

A Sunni Muslim cleric was wounded on Thursday in what he claimed was an assassination attempt against him that killed his son and son-in-law.

Nazem Khalaf, a cleric at the Rahman mosque in Abu Dsheer, a suburb in southwestern Baghdad, said that assailants drove up next to his car and opened fire.

He was wounded in the head and hand, and his 21-year-old-son and 37-year-old son-in-law were killed.

"Whoever tried to kill me is trying to ignite sectarian violence," said Khalaf, who claimed that three days before the attack, a member from a Shiite Muslim militant group threatened to kill him if he didn't stop going to the mosque. He said he was accused of belonging to the Wahhabis, a militant sect whose adherents are mainly in Saudi Arabia.

The alleged attempt is the second known attack on a Sunni Muslim cleric following the bombings at Shiite Muslim shrines in Karbala and Baghdad on March 2 which killed at least 181 people and left 573 wounded. It was the bloodiest day since the ouster of Saddam Hussein last April.

On Wednesday, the US military said that the imam of the al-Qubaisi mosque, in west Baghdad, was shot and killed by unknown assailants on Sunday. The imam, Sheik Ali al-Dhabi, was killed in a drive-by shooting.

US and Iraqi officials said the March 2 attacks were aimed at starting a civil war in Iraq and accused foreign elements of being behind them.

Police at the Bilat al-Shuhada police station in the Abu Dsheer district refused to comment on the alleged attempt on Thursday.
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