BAGHDAD — Two prominent Shiite Muslim politicians were assassinated, Iraq's largest political movement said Thursday, raising fears that religious strife was escalating during the volatile U.S.-led occupation.
Muhannad Hakim, an official with the Education Ministry, was gunned down Wednesday in front of his Baghdad home in a daytime drive-by shooting. Also Wednesday, a former official of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party, Ali Zalimi, was beaten and shot repeatedly in the holy city of Najaf by a mob that accused him of carrying out Hussein's repressions.
Sectarian clashes have occurred sporadically in Iraq since Hussein was ousted in April. Just over a week ago, a bomb exploded at the Ahbab Mustafa Mosque here, killing four Sunni Muslims and prompting accusations that Shiites were responsible.
"We are accusing Saddam's remnants of being behind what happened," said Ali Bayati, a member of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, or SCIRI, the political movement representing Iraq's largest religious group. Shiites make up more than 60% of the population.
Early this morning, a huge explosion in western Baghdad toppled a building that housed offices of SCIRI and the Shiite militia known as the Badr Brigade, killing at least one woman from a caretaker family that lived on the property.
At least three other people among the 25 present were wounded.
Like many Iraqis who feel vulnerable as insurgents target the U.S. and its allies, Bayati said Thursday that he feared attacks would continue until foreign forces withdrew.
"This will not end until Iraqis are responsible for their own security," he said. "We can manage our security affairs better on our own because we know our society and people."
Coalition officials described the slaying of Hakim as an act of desperation by doomed insurgents trying to sabotage the country's reconstruction and its recovery from dictatorship and war's physical devastation.
"Clearly, the bitter-enders, supporters of the former regime, recognize which direction the train is heading,'' said Dan Senor, a spokesman for the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority. He warned of further assassinations and ambushes after Saturday's capture of Hussein.
"Those who want this [reconstruction] to fail will likely increase attacks, not decrease them, because they want to throw this train off the tracks," he said.
