Iraqi councillor 'critical' after attack

The assassins of Baghdad struck yesterday at one of the only three women on the American-sponsored Iraqi governing council, gravely wounding Akila al-Hashimi, a Shia Muslim who had worked at the country's foreign ministry under Saddam Hussein's regime.

At least six gunmen in two cars ambushed Ms Hashimi outside her Baghdad home in the morning, firing Kalashnikov rifles - and throwing at least one grenade - at her car, which drove at speed into a garage as her driver made a desperate attempt to escape.

Ms Hashimi, who was due to return to the United Nations in New York with an Iraqi delegation to seek Iraq's seat at the General Assembly, was wounded in the abdomen and taken to Baghdad's Yarmouk hospital. After emergency surgery, she was then driven under heavy US military protection to an American military field hospital outside the city in a "critical" condition. Two of her bodyguards are also reported to have been wounded in the attack.

For days now, US agents in Baghdad have been trying to second-guess the growing resistance army here, building concrete defences around prestige targets in the city - hotels, American bases and bridges over the Tigres river - while fearful American troops have been shooting at civilians on the mere suspicion of hostility.

The American civil administrator, Paul Bremer, appointed the council as an interim measure before Iraqi elections that will decide the future government of the country. Two-thirds of the council is made up of Iraqis who have returned from overseas exile or of Kurdish leaders, and their decisions are taken in secret.

Ms Hashimi is the only member of the ancien régime to have been given a place in the council. She was a colleague of Tariq Aziz, one of Saddam's principal advisers, and an Iraqi civil servant intimately involved in the oil-for-food programme that existed under American-inspired UN sanctions.

Two men have supposedly been arrested in connection with the attack, although the announcement of arrests - usually to placate public opinion - is often followed by news of the release of suspects.

The attack on Ms Hashimi came two days after an ambush and gun battle that killed three US soldiers and wounded two on Thursday night near Tikrit. Fifty-eight Iraqis were captured after the attacks on Thursday, described as some of the fiercest and best-planned resistance in months. And on Saturday, US tanks and armoured fighting vehicles rumbled through Tikrit in a show of force meant to discourage more attacks and flush out armed resistance.

* An American soldier shot dead a rare Bengal tiger at Baghdad zoo after the animal injured a comrade who was trying to feed it through the cage bars. The zoo's manager said yesterday that a group of soldiers were having a party in the zoo on Thursday night, after it had closed. "Someone was trying to feed the tigers," he said. "The tiger bit his finger off and clawed his arm. So his colleague took a gun and shot the tiger." There was no immediate US comment.