An assassination attempt against the Iraqi foreign minister

Gunmen opened fire yesterday at the procession of cars owned by the Iraqi foreign minister Hoshyar Zeibari, and resulted in killing commander of his personal guards Salah Saeed al-Zeira and wounding of others.

One officer in the Iraqi national guards said that Zeibari was not in the procession which was composed of two cars when the attack took place in an area situated 100 Km to the south of Karkouk. He added that five officials in the Iraqi foreign ministry were in one of the two cars while the other included the security guards members.

Meantime, one official in the Northern Iraq oil company said that the Iraqi oil exports from Karkouk to the Turkish port of Jeihan stopped yesterday for two days following an attack which targeted the main oil pipeline in the area.

Moreover, the Iraqi police announced that smugglers cracked one oil pipeline in southern Iraq in an attempt to steal crude oil but this did not affect exports from the southern al-Basra port.