Saddam Hussein namesake gunned down in Kirkuk
Released on - Thursday,02 July , 2009 -12:53 47
An Iraqi army officer named Saddam Hussein was shot dead by gunmen in the Iraqi oil hub of Kirkuk as he was driving to work on Thursday, a security official said.
"Major Saddam Hussein was killed this morning after being attacked by gunmen who pumped 24 bullets into his body," the official told AFP.
The restive city has been hit by bloody attacks in recent weeks. On Tuesday 33 people were killed in a car bombing at a popular market and last month 72 people were killed by a suicide bomber in a nearby town.
Kirkuk is plagued with tensions among its Kurdish, Turkmen and Arab communities. Many of the Arabs were settled in the province by executed dictator Saddam Hussein's regime in a deliberate attempt to dilute its historic Kurdish majority.