BAGHDAD, Dec. 18 (UPI) -- Iraqi security officials said two Iraqi policemen were killed Sunday by a roadside bomb in eastern Baghdad that targeted their patrol.
An interior ministry official said the explosion completely destroyed one of the police cars.
In another incident, the official added, a Shiite cleric was assassinated by unidentified gunmen on Saturday night.
He told United Press International the cleric, Ali Abdul Karim al-Assadi, was a senior official in al-Bader organization, a wing of the powerful Shiite Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution in Iraq, led by Abdul Aziz al-Hakim.
The official said the gunmen fled as soon as they fired at his car and killed him.
In western Baghdad, gunmen on Saturday night also shot down retired General Mushraf al-Ibrahimi of the dissolved former Iraqi air force.
Security officials said the gunmen opened fire at him while he was in his car near his home. They also escaped.
Assassinations of Iraqi figures have been growing in recent weeks, raising concerns that settling political scores by killing may ignite a feared civil war in the war-torn country.
