Iraqi mourners attend on December 2, 2015 the funeral of Mohammed Khalil al-Juburi (portrait R), the most senior Arab member of the Kirkuk provincial council, after he was killed along with his wife when gunmen sprayed their car with bullets in central Kirkuk the previous day (Photo: AFP)
A provincial police official says gunmen have shot and killed a prominent Sunni politician in Iraq's northern city of Kirkuk.
The deputy police chief in the city, Maj. Gen. Torhan Abdul-Rahman Youssef, said Wednesday that security forces were searching for suspects in the killings of councilman Moahmmed Khalil al-Jubouri and his wife late Tuesday.
Youssef said al-Jubouri was traveling through the central Taseen neighborhood without guards when drive-by shooters opened fire.
Iraq's Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi ordered a "thorough and independent" investigation.
Ethnically-mixed Kirkuk is at the center of a struggle for power between Arabs and ethnic Turkmen and Kurds, who claim the area as their own and eventually hope to annex it to their self-rule enclave in northern Iraq.
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