Gunmen attacked a convoy carrying an official of a government agency that cares for Sunni-Arab mosques, killing him and three of his bodyguards on Thursday, police said. The attack, which also wounded two bodyguards, occurred in Basra, the largest city in mostly Shiite southern Iraq, a police spokesman said on condition of anonymity out of concern for his own safety. Nasir Gatami, the official who died, was the deputy of the Sunni Endowment chapter in Basra, the spokesman said. A spokesman at the Sunni Endowment's headquarters in Baghdad confirmed the attack and said all its victims were Sunnis, the Associated Press reported. The attack occurred near the Khalid bridge in northern Basra, 550 kilometers (340 miles) southeast of the Iraqi capital. AP Television News reporters at the scene saw the bodies of the victims and their bullet-ridden, two-car convoy.
