AFP, Mosul, Iraq, May 24, 2010 – An Iraqi MP from the secular Iraqiya bloc of ex-premier Iyad Allawi was assassinated on Monday in the restive northern city of Mosul, a doctor at the city’s main hospital told AFP.
’Gunmen set up an ambush for MP Bashar Hamid Agaidi outside his house in the Amilneighbourhood and opened fire when he got home,’ a police officer said, adding the lawmaker was rushed to hospital in ’serious condition.’
Doctor Fares al-Obeidi confirmed that Agaidi, 32, died of his wounds. Obeidi said Agaidi suffered gunshots to the head and chest.
Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh condemned the killing, telling al-Arabiya satellite television that ’this was a criminal act against an important symbol who had just been elected.’
Agaidi’s death is the first assassination of an MP since the March 7 parliamentary elections in which Allawi’sIraqiya bloc won 91 seats in Iraq’s 325-member Council of Representatives.
Incumbent Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s State of Law alliance came second with 89 seats.
Mosul, 350 kilometres (215 miles) north of Baghdad, is the capital of Nineveh province — one of the country’s most violent cities and a hotspot of insurgent attacks.