Gunmen kill prominent Iraqi academic in Baghdad

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Gunmen shot dead a prominent Iraqi
academic and political analyst in his car in a Baghdad street
on Saturday, police said.

Abdul Razak al-Na’as, a familiar face on Al-Jazeera and Al-
Arabiya Arabic satellite television channels, had just left his
offices at Baghdad University’s College of Information in the
center of the capital, police said.

Gunmen blocked his car with their own and then opened fire,
killing him instantly.

The Sunni academic had often condemned the continued
presence of U.S. troops in Iraq and criticized the Kurdish- and
Shi’ite-led government, saying it was unable to run the
country.

The Iraqi Accordance Front, the biggest Sunni political
grouping, said Na’as had “paid the price for his noble
stances.”

“I hold the American forces and the Iraqi government
responsible for protecting Iraqi academics and politicians,”
Front spokesman Zafir al-Ani told Reuters.

A number of Iraqi academics have been killed in the past
two years, but in the chaos following the U.S. overthrow of
Saddam Hussein in March 2003, it has not always been easy to
establish whether the killings were politically or criminally
motivated.