BAGHDAD, June 9 (UPI) -- Three Iraqi government officials were assassinated Thursday in separate attacks in Baghdad, Interior Ministry officials told CNN.
Basim Taher, a judge at a civic court in al-Bayaa, was shot while he was driving to his home in western Baghdad. Jalal Jassim Mohammed, director general of al-Nasr State Co. for Mechanical Industries, was shot while driving near the company's location in northern Baghdad. And a police commissioner was shot and killed while he was driving near his house in the western part of the city, CNN reported.
A fourth man, who was not a government official, was killed by a car bomb as he drove near his house, officials told the cable news channel.
Dozens of government officials have been killed in recent months by gunmen using pistols with silencers or by car bombs affixed to their vehicles' undercarriages, CNN said. Some officials have started changing the colors and models of their vehicles in an attempt to elude assassination.
