An official belonging to one of the main Kurdish parties in northern Iraq was gunned down in a drive-by shooting, police said Monday. Sharzad Hassan, 31, was returning to his home in Kirkuk late Sunday when gunmen opened fire as they drove by his house in a mainly Arab neighborhood in the city, some 290 kilometers (180 miles) north of Baghdad, said police officer Sarhat Qadir. Hassan was a "peshmerga" fighter and member of the pro-U.S. Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.