Gunmen killed an aide to Iraq's most influential Shiite cleric and two bodyguards in a drive-by shooting outside a mosque in Iraq's capital on Friday.
Shiite cleric Kamal Ezz Al Deen Al Ghuraifi was shot as he was about to leave Al Doreen mosque after leading prayers, said his son Hamid Kamal.
Police Lt. Thair Mahmoud confirmed the attack, saying that "gunmen in a speeding car sprayed him with [bullets from] machine-guns."
Mahmoud said two of Al Ghuraifi's bodyguards were also killed and another four were wounded.
Kamal said the attack on his father is likely to further stoke tensions between the country's Shiite majority and the Sunni minority.
Separately, five masked gunmen stormed a Sunni mosque in the same central Baghdad neighborhood of Al Hilla and kidnapped an imam during Friday prayers, police 1st Lt.
Mohammed Al Hiyani said.
Sheik Amer Al Tikriti was abducted at Saad bin Al Waqas mosque, he said.
It was not immediately clear if the shooting and the kidnapping were connected.
Al Ghuraifi had been a representative of Iraq's leading Shiite cleric—Grand Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani—for the past decade in Baghdad.
Also on Friday, a suicide bomber detonated his car near a checkpoint outside the offices of Al Jaafari's Islamic Dawa Party, killing one person and injuring at least four more, officials said.
The prime minister was not at the building in central Baghdad's Mansour neighbourhood at the time of the attack, party official Ayad Al Nedawi said.
He said the suicide bomber detonated the car near a checkpoint about 25 metres away from the party's offices, formerly Al Jaafari's house.
