URGENT / IIP official survives attempt in Mosul

NINEWA / IraqiNews.com: An official in the Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP) survived an assassination attempt when two unidentified gunmen targeted his motorcade north of Mosul city on Saturday, a Ninewa police source said. “Unidentified gunmen opened fire today at the convoy of Yahya Abad Mahjoub, an IIP member of the Ninewa provincial council, while heading for the IIP office in al-Sahel al-Aysar, al-Shurta neighborhood, north of Mosul,” the source told IraqiNews.com. “The attack left no casualties but severely damaged a convoy vehicle,” the source added. He said that the convoy bodyguards fired back at the gunmen and the police intervened and tracked them down, killing one of the gunmen and seizing his vehicle in the nearby al-Hai al-Ziraaie neighborhood. The IIP is led by Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi. Mosul, the capital city of Ninewa, lies 405 km north of Baghdad. The original city of Mosul stands on the west bank of the Tigris River, opposite the ancient biblical city of Nineveh on the east bank, but the metropolitan area has now grown to encompass substantial areas on both banks, with five bridges linking the two sides. Despite having an amount of Kurdish population, it does not form part of the area controlled by the Kurdistan Regional Government Kurdistan RegionG). There are different communities in Mosul like Christians, Shiites and Kurds along with a Sunni majority. The city is also a historic center for the Nestorian Christianity of the Assyrians, containing the tombs of several Old Testament prophets such as Jonah, Yunus in Arabic, and Nahum. AmR (S) 1