Iraq: Assassins kill aide to Shi'ite leader

Three gunmen in a speeding automobile shot and killed a junior aide to Iraq's pre-eminent Shi'ite Muslim cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, police and a source in the ayatollah's office reported Wednesday. Sheik Raheem al-Hasnawi, al-Sistani's representative in the al-Mishkhab area, 35 kilometers south of the southern Shi'ite shrine city of Najaf, was killed around 11 p.m. Tuesday near his home on the north side of Najaf, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity out of security concerns.