Baghdad: Gunmen killed a Sunni cleric early yesterday, spraying him with bullets outside a Baghdad mosque where he had just finished leading morning prayers, officials said.
Shaikh Ghazi Jabouri was gunned down in a hail of automatic-weapons fire outside the Al Rahman mosque in the primarily Sunni neighbourhood of Azamiyah in north Baghdad at about 5am, a police officer said. An army officer confirmed the report.
It was not known why the 48-year-old imam was targeted, but authorities are worried Al Qaida in Iraq or other extremists might try to re-ignite sectarian violence following the March 7 parliamentary election.
The vote produced no clear winner, leading to prolonged negotiations over the next government.
Elsewhere in the capital, a high-ranking police officer was killed when a so-called "sticky bomb" on his car exploded as he drove to work, an Interior Ministry official said.
The official said that in addition to killing Brigadier General Arkan Ali, who served on the ministry's anti-terrorism force, the explosion in western Baghdad's Al Nisoor Square also injured four bystanders, a traffic policeman and another ministry official who was in the car.
