Lawmakers Take a Risk in Taking On Their Job

BAGHDAD —  Lamia Abed Khadouri Sakri used to tell family members that she didn’t want to live so long that she would become a burden to her siblings.

Sakri, unmarried and in her 40s, prayed, “Lord if you want to take my soul, then take it, but don’t leave me crippled and weak,’ ” said Sakri’s sister, Umm Sahar. As the Iraqi National Assembly celebrated approval of the country’s first democratically elected government in decades, Sakri’s seat was empty Thursday save for a bouquet of flowers. The legislator was shot to death by unknown assailants Wednesday afternoon outside her Baghdad home, the first member of the recently elected assembly to be assassinated.

A day after the Cabinet was named, a series of explosions rocked the capital. In the Adamiya district, at least 14 people were killed, including two police officers, in four car bombings this morning, neighborhood hospital sources said.

At least one blast targeted a police station in southern Baghdad. Southeast of the capital, at least one suicide driver struck a police convoy. No casualties figures were given in those attacks.

Elsewhere Thursday, a U.S. soldier was killed by a roadside bomb near near Hawija.

Sakri’s home in the Banouk neighborhood was a heavily guarded place of mourning. Inside, where Sakri lived with her brother and his family, Sakri’s sister lay on the floor weeping, surrounded by family and neighbors.

“Now I feel like an orphan ... “ she said. Sakri “was my everything.”

Sakri was shot as she walked toward the door of the house after being dropped off by her sole bodyguard. According to family members, she turned back toward the property’s metal gate when someone called out to her, then was shot several times.

A former Baath Party member turned women’s activist, Sakri worked as an inspector for the Education Ministry before entering politics. A devout Shiite Muslim, she was elected Jan. 30 as part of former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi’s Iraqi List slate, and formed a bond with many of the other assemblywomen.

“When women chose to be nominated for the national assembly ... they have actually decided to sacrifice themselves to serve their country,” said Dr. Jinan Jassim Ubaydi, a female pediatrician elected on the leading Shiite slate. “Although the murder of our colleague saddens us, it will never intimidate us.”

Amid Thursday’s celebrations and news conferences on the new government’s formation, Sakri’s empty seat was a glaring reminder that the 275-member assembly remains in the cross hairs of an insurgency that has branded it a collaborator with the enemy, the U.S.

Unlike the top government officials, who live inside the fortress-like Green Zone and travel with packs of bodyguards, many assembly members retain something resembling a normal life. Sakri lived in a quiet middle-class neighborhood, traveled in an unarmored car and hired a bodyguard only because of the urgings of her family.

That desire for a normal life was a fatal mistake, said Lt. Col. Kadhim Beresam of the nearby Quds police station.

“Her mistake is that she did not inform our police station about her living nearby. If we knew, we would have provided protection for her,” he said.

Sakri’s brother, a dentist, pleaded with her several times to quit the assembly for her own safety. Her stock answer: “God will protect me.”

Still, many colleagues said Sakri seemed aware of the danger. Her sister said she tried to avoid being interviewed on television because she did not want to become widely known.

On her last day in the assembly, Sakri gave affectionate goodbyes to many of her female colleagues, “as if she knew she wouldn’t see them again,” said Jawad Maliki, an aide to new Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari.

Maliki praised the quiet courage of Sakri and her fellow assembly members for continuing to perform what they see as a national duty in the face of a standing death threat. “We’re all on this path,” he said.

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Times staff writer Suhail Ahmad contributed to this report.