2 top Iraqi officials are slain in Baghdad

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Gunmen today killed the cultural affairs officer for Iraq's Education Ministry, Kamal al-Jarah, one day after the country's most senior career diplomat, Bassam Salih Kubba, was also murdered, authorities said.

These were the first assassinations of top Iraqi officials since the new interim government took office just under two weeks ago.

Attackers ambushed al-Jarah outside his home as he was leaving for work about 7:30 a.m. today. The attack took place in the Baghdad neighborhood of Ghazaliya, a predominantly Sunni Muslim neighborhood where support for Saddam Hussein's regime had been strong. Al-Jarah died of his wounds at the Yarmouk Hospital, said Abdul Khaliq al-Amri, a ministry official.

U.S. convoys have often come under attack in the northwest Baghdad neighborhood.

Earlier, gunmen killed Kubba as he was being driven to work Saturday morning. He had just left his home in the Adhamiya suburb north of Baghdad when gunmen in a black sedan fired at his car, striking Kubba fatally and injuring his driver, relatives said. Kubba died as his driver sped to the hospital in the unarmored white Mercedes, its back windows shattered by bullets.

Kubba, 60, was appointed as a deputy foreign minister two months ago but had worked at the ministry since 1968. He served as former president Saddam Hussein's ambassador to China and was chief of Iraq's mission to the United Nations. He was on the committee that ran the Foreign Ministry after Saddam's overthrow last year.

High-profile Iraqi officials associated with the U.S.-led occupation authority and the transitional government have been targeted repeatedly by insurgents in the weeks leading up to the June 30 transfer of power.

The head of the now-disbanded Iraqi Governing Council, Izzedin Salim, was killed in a suicide car bombing May 17 at an entrance to the heavily guarded headquarters of the occupation. Two days later, a car bomb exploded outside the home of Abdul-Jabbar Youssef Sheikhli, a deputy minister in Iraq's Interior Ministry, wounding him and his wife and killing five civilians.

On Wednesday, Deputy Health Minister Ammar Safar escaped an assassination attempt in the same Sunni Muslim area of Baghdad where Kubba was gunned down. Safar was also on his way to work when he was attacked. His guards exchanged fire with the attackers, who then fled.

A statement from Iraq's Foreign Ministry blamed the assassination of Kubba, a Shiite Muslim, on "leftover supporters of Saddam Hussein."