Badr Organization official assassinated in Touz

IRAQ / IraqiNews.com: An official in charge of the Badr Organization office in Amirli district was killed by gunmen fire south of Kirkuk province on Thursday, a police source said. “Unidentified gunmen opened fire at an official of Badr Organization office in front of his house in Amirli, Touz Khormato, killing him instantly,” the source told IraqiNews.com news agency. “The dead man’s body was removed to a hospital in Touz Khormato,” the source added, not giving more details. Touz Khormato, or simply Touz, is a district that lies 80 km south of the province of Kirkuk. The Badr Organization is one of the formations of Shiite leader Abdelaziz al-Hakim’s Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC). Hakim is also the leader of the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), the largest bloc in the Iraqi parliament with 83 out of a total 275 seats. Kirkuk, 250 km (156 miles) north of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, sits on the ruins of a 5,000-year-old settlement. Because of the strategic geographical location of the city, Kirkuk was the battle ground for three empires, Assyria, Babylonia and Media which controlled the city at various times. Kirkuk is the centre of the northern Iraqi petroleum industry. It is a historically and ethnically mixed city populated by Assyrians, Kurds, Arabs and Iraqi Turkmen. The population was estimated at 1,200,000 in 2008. AmR (S) 1