BAGHDAD, Sept 25: Akila al-Hashimi, a female member of Iraq’s Governing Council, died on Thursday from gunshot wounds suffered last weekend in the first attack on an official of the US-installed administration.

“Today the people of Iraq have lost a courageous champion and pioneer for the cause of freedom and democracy,” US civilian administrator Paul Bremer said in a statement of condolences.

Hashimi was the second prominent Iraqi personality killed after being viewed as sympathetic to the American occupation. Shia leader Ayatollah Mohammad Baqer al-Hakim died in a massive car bomb last month in the city of Najaf.

A spokesman for the Governing Council said three days of mourning had been declared in memory of Hashimi, a foreign policy expert and one of three women on the 25-member council.

Hashimi was ambushed by gunmen who lobbed a bomb and sprayed her two-car convoy with machine-gun fire near her house here last Saturday before she was due to leave for New York as part of a delegation to the United Nations.

The death of Hashimi is likely to further stir tensions in Iraq, where US-led troops are faced with daily attacks, bombings and now a political assassination more than five months after they ousted Saddam Hussein.

Hashimi was known as a savvy diplomat and self-described technocrat who made a smooth transition from Saddam Hussein’s regime to the US occupation.

Hashimi led Iraq’s team to a pre-donors’ and reconstruction conference in New York in June and was due to take part in the crucial round of UN talks currently under way on Iraq’s future.—AFP