Iraq's head of anti-Baath committee assassinated

 A senior Iraqi politician in charge of a committee purging Saddam Hussein loyalists was killed on Thursday, a local police source said.

The executive director of the Justice and Accountability Commission (JAC), Ali al-Lami, a Shiite Muslim, was shot dead in his car in east Baghdad by unidentified gunmen using silenced weapons, the police source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

The JAC, formerly named de-Baathification Committee formed after the Iraq war, is tasked with vetting people trying to get government jobs or take political office for ties to Saddam Hussein's Baath Party.

Al-Lami and his JAC came under fire in last year's general election because he banned some Sunni candidates running for office on the allegation that the latter had ties with Saddam's Baath regime. Many Sunnis see the move as attempts to further marginalize the minority group which ruled the country before.

Al-Lami's death capped increased attacks and bombings against Iraq's government officials and security forces in recent months.

Three Iraqi soldiers were killed in a suicide bomb attack near Baghdad and another three policemen lost their lives in a roadside bombing 120 km north of the capital earlier in the same day.

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