(26 Sep 2018) Masked gunmen have shot dead a human rights activist and mother of four outside a supermarket in Basra, a brazen attack that threatens to worsen tensions in the southern city wracked by violent protests.
An Iraqi police official said Soad al-Ali was killed instantly by the gunmen, who fled the scene after shooting at her and her husband as they were getting in their car.
Al-Ali was killed on the spot while her husband was wounded and was being treated in a hospital.
The 46-year-old activist had been involved in organising protests demanding better services in Basra.
The killing, which occurred on a street in the Abbasiya district in the centre of the city, was the first such incident since protests erupted this summer.
Angry Basra residents have repeatedly taken to the streets in recent weeks to protest failing government services, including water contamination that sent tens of thousands to hospitals.
Earlier this month, protests turned violent when demonstrators attacked government offices, the headquarters of the Iranian-backed militias and Iran's consulate - in a show of anger over what many residents perceive as Iran's outsized control over local affairs.
The events in Basra reflect the growing influence of the militias, which played a major role in retaking Iraqi territory from Islamic State militants, who are Sunni Muslims.
Protest activists have described a campaign of intimidation and arbitrary detentions by the powerful militias and political groups that control Basra, a city of more than two million people in southern Iraq's Shiite Muslim heartland.
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