Bodies of Kurdish lawmaker and driver found, 1st assasination of current National Assembly member

Iraq's National Assembly in session

BAGHDAD, Oct. 5 — A Kurdish lawmaker, along with his driver, was shot and killed here Thursday afternoon. He was the first Parliament member in the current government to be assassinated, officials said.

The lawmaker, Mohammad Redha Mohammad, was an Islamist Sunni in the mostly secular Kurdistan Alliance, which represents the second-largest bloc in the Iraqi National Assembly.

Mr. Mohammad’s religious background raises the possibility that his killing was yet another example of the sectarian violence that has riven this country since February’s bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra.

An Interior Ministry official said the two bodies had been found by the Iraqi police in northern Baghdad, just a few yards from offices of the Sunni Endowment, a government organization that administers Sunni mosques. It is in Slaikh, a neighborhood that has been troubled by sectarian violence. Both men had been shot in the head.

Members of Parliament are permitted to hire up to 20 bodyguards, but Mr. Mohammad had none with him on Thursday, said Arif Tayfoor, deputy speaker of the Kurdistan Alliance, who confirmed the discovery of the body. Mr. Mohammad probably felt comfortable visiting the organization without his personal security detail because of his Islamist credentials, Mr. Tayfoor said.

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