Gunmen assassinated a leading Iraqi official for Diyala province northeast of Baghdad on Saturday, shooting him dead and wounding his brother near the provincial capital of Baquba, police said. Nawfal Abdul-Hussein al-Shimari, head of the council governing Diyala, was killed in a shop near Baquba, which has been one of the main centres of the insurgency against U.S. and Iraqi forces. Gunmen also shot dead an Iraqi police major outside his home in southwest Baghdad, where insurgents are particularly active, a police source said. Guerrillas fighting U.S.-led troops and the American-backed Iraqi government have repeatedly targeted local government officials as well as Iraqi police and National Guards.
