BAGHDAD, April 27: Iraqi Vice-President Tareq al Hashemi’s sister was shot dead by gunmen on Thursday in the latest attack targeting the country’s Sunni political establishment.

Mayssun Hashemi was travelling in southern Baghdad’s Al Ilam neighbourhood when ‘gunmen ambushed her car and sprayed it with bullets, killing her and her driver’, an interior ministry official said.

The television station of Mr Hashemi’s Iraqi Islamic Party interrupted its programming to show pictures of Mr Hashemi’s sister’s bullet-riddled, blood-splattered mini-bus.

The vehicle had been blocked by a car and gunmen then swarmed the mini-bus and fired 32 shots at Mr Hashemi’s sister and her driver, said a station announcer.

No one in the neighbourhood rushed forward to provide medical care to the victims out of fear, an Iraqi Islamic Party official said.

Earlier this month, Mr Hashemi’s brother, Mahmud, was shot dead by gunmen in central Baghdad. Leading Sunni politician Saleh al Mutlaq’s brother was also found dead on April 17 after being kidnapped, raising fears of a deadly campaign against Sunnis participating in parliament.

Mr Hashemi was elected as Iraq’s new vice president last week, along with Jalal Talabani as president and Adel Abdel Mahdi as the other vice president.

His Iraqi Islamic Party is the driving force in Iraq’s National Concord Front, which, with 44 seats, is the biggest Sunni bloc in the country’s 275-member parliament.

The National Concord Front denounced the latest killing. “It is a cowardly and criminal act which comes just two weeks after the murder of Hashemi’s brother,” said spokesman Dhafer Ani.

People gathered to pay condolences to Mr Hashemi at the Iraqi Islamic Party’s headquarters in the western Yarmuk neighbourhood.—AFP