Ali al-Haidari

Gov. Ali al-Haidari is the highest-ranking government official to be slain in the run-up to the nation's Jan. 30 elections. With violence continuing to roil Baghdad and other cities, some senior Iraqi officials renewed calls for delaying the vote.

U.S. Embassy officials and Iraqi election authorities in Baghdad stressed Jan. 4 that the vote should proceed on schedule. But President Ghazi Ajil Yawer, who only last month said the vote must go forward, urged the United Nations to consider postponing it.

Followers of Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi claimed responsibility for the assassination, calling al-Haidari an "American agent," according to a statement published on an Islamic Web site.

Al-Haidari, 47, a former Education Ministry official who took office last summer, was killed in a sophisticated ambush close to the guarded compound in northwestern Baghdad where he worked and lived.

The father of three had survived at least two previous assassination attempts, including a drive-by shooting in July and a roadside bomb in September that killed two bodyguards.

The Japan Times Weekly: Jan. 15, 2005
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