BAGHDAD, Sept 20: Gunmen shot and seriously wounded a woman member of Iraq’s Governing Council here on Saturday, the first attack on an official of the US-installed administration since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

Authorities said Akila al-Hashimi was shot in the stomach, shoulder and leg near her house in western Baghdad and underwent surgery on her abdomen. Witnesses said four men with her, including two brothers, were also hurt.

An Iraqi official, who asked not to be named, said at least one suspect was arrested after the ambush that occurred about 8:45 am (0445 GMT) as Hashimi was being driven to work in a two-car convoy.

Ms Hashimi, a prominent diplomat and foreign policy expert, is one of three women on the 25-member Governing Council formed in July by the US-led coalition.

Khodeir Mohsen, a policeman, said that five men in a pickup truck ambushed Hashimi as she was leaving her house near the Shanshall mosque, spraying the convoy with Kalashnikov fire.

Residents of the Kharijiyah neighbourhood said the attack occurred as she emerged from an alleyway in a Land Rover, also carrying one of her brothers and a bodyguard, followed by a small car with another brother and two more men. Hashimi and the two others in the Land Rover were wounded, while the vehicle crashed into the wall of a villa, witnesses said. They said the brother and another man in the smaller car were also wounded.

There was no immediate word on who was behind of the shooting of Ms Hashimi, the first prominent pro-American politician targeted here since Saddam’s government was overthrown in April.

A doctor at Yarmuk hospital said Ms Hashimi was hit by several bullets and underwent an operation on her stomach before she was transferred to an unknown destination by a US military ambulance.

The doctor, Hussein al-Tarihi, said her condition was stable but she needed 24-hour surveillance.

Governing Council chairman Ahmad Chalabi visited Ms Hashimi at Yarmuk hospital, where US soldiers and local guards stood watch. Khodayyir Fadel Abbas, health minister in the interim government, accompanied her in the US ambulance.

Ms Hashimi, a onetime member of Saddam’s Baath Party and protege of former deputy prime minister Tareq Aziz, handled relations with international organizations under the old regime.

After the fall of Saddam she was one of the few Baathists to keep her job and was named to the Governing Council, serving on the follow-up committee running the interim foreign ministry.

She led Iraq’s team to a preparatory donors and reconstruction conference in New York in June, and is part of the senior delegation that was due to attend UN talks in New York on Iraq’s future.with 82 other people in a car bombing on Aug 29 in the holy city of Najaf.—Agencies