HILLA, Iraq (AFP) — The police chief of central Iraq's Babil province was killed in a roadside bombing on Sunday in the latest attack on leaders in governates south of Baghdad where a Shiite turf war is raging.
Major General Qais al-Mamoori was killed in the village of Al-Buajaj, near Babil's capital of Hilla, when a bomb struck his convoy, police Lieutenant Ali al-Shammari said. His driver and one bodyguard were wounded.
Mamoori is the third top Shiite official to be assassinated in the last four months in provinces south of the Iraqi capital and the second provincial police chief to be targeted amid intense rivalries within the Shiite factions.
Captain Muthanna Hassan, spokesman for Hilla police, confirmed that Mamoori had been killed in the attack.
Doctor Mohammed al-Saidi from Hilla general hospital said the police chief was brought alive to the facility but died on the operating table.
"After the attack he was brought to Hilla hospital and doctors started an emergency operation on him. But he died in five minutes," Saidi told AFP.
Another official from Hassan's office said police had sealed off the area where the attack took place. He added that Mamoori had recently been offered the job of adviser to the interior minister but had turned it down.
"He said he wanted to remain as the police chief. He was very popular with the people," the official said.
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani hailed Mamoori as a courageous man not afraid to confront "terrorism".
"Iraq lost a courageous leader and an obedient son, a citizen who was fair, professional and always loyal to the constitution," Talabani said in a statement, adding that the police chief had sacrificed his life to improve security and confront terrorism.
Mamoori had been due to attend a meeting with US-led coalition troops later on Sunday, a security official said.
Later Sunday Mamoori's body was brought, wrapped in an Iraqi flag, to the central Shiite city of Karbala where it was taken to the revered Imam Hussein shrine.
Hundreds of people attended the funeral later in Karbala.
Police imposed a curfew on Hilla immediately after the assassination and local people were seen firing their guns into the air as a sign of mourning, an AFP correspondent reported.
Babil, a mainly Shiite province, has been largely peaceful but has seen occasional spectacular bomb attacks by suspected Sunni insurgents, including one last March when a massive blast killed 92 people.
Most of the attacks have been aimed at Shiite pilgrims travelling through Hilla and headed farther south to Najaf for religious festivals.
It was not immediately known who was behind the assassination of Mamoori, which comes amid increased infighting between Shiite factions in the centre and south of the country.
The governor of southern Muthanna province, Mohammed Ali al-Hassani, was killed by a roadside bomb in August, a few days after Qadisiyah provincial governor Khalil Jamil Hamza was assassinated in a similar way.
Both Hamza and Hassani were members of the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council (SIIC), one of the country's most powerful parties and a bitter rival of another Shiite movement led by radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
The police chief in Basra, Major General Jalil Khalif, survived two similar attacks last month.
Mamoori's killing comes just days after an Al-Qaeda-linked group warned it would unleash a bombing campaign against Iraqi security forces and the anti-Qaeda fronts known as Al-Sahwa (Awakening) councils.
In the past week, dozens of people have been killed in a spate of blasts targeting security forces and Awakening councils, mainly in Diyala province north of Baghdad -- including one attack by a woman suicide bomber.
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