Prominent Iraqi publisher and former presidential aide Fakhri Karim survived an assassination attempt in Baghdad on Thursday after gunmen intercepted his vehicle and shot it with eleven bullets.
Karim was on his way home after visiting the Iraq International Book Fair in Baghdad that is being sponsored by the Al Mada Foundation for Media, Culture and Art, which he founded in the 1990s.
Before leaving the fair, Karim attended a panel discussion attended by former Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi. Karim complained about “the little room there it is to maneuver in the Iraqi political scene”. An hour later, he was the victim of a failed attempt on his life.
A security cable, received by Asharq Al-Awsat, revealed that Karim’s vehicle was intercepted by a pickup truck at 9 pm sharp on Thursday night. The gunmen fired eleven shots at his car. He was miraculously unharmed.
Karim was aide to late former President Jalal Talabani from 2006 to 2014.
A source close to his family told Asharq Al-Awsat that Karim was sitting in the passenger seat at the time of the attack.
The gunmen got out of their truck and fired their weapons at the car. As another gunman approached Karim’s side of the car, a government patrol happened to be passing by the area, prompting the assailants to flee before they could complete the job.
The source stressed that Karim was doing well and that he had miraculously escaped with his life.
“This was not a threat, but an attempt to take him out in an ugly way,” he added.
In a statement condemning the attack, Al Mada said: “The failed and heinous attempt underscores that the powers of darkness and backwardness are responsible for the destruction in Iraq.”
“They are displeased with Iraqis participating in a major and influential cultural event, such as the Iraq International Book Fair, which has been underway for days in Baghdad and visited by hundreds of thousands of people” from across the country, it stated.
“The failed assassination reflects the influential role Karim and the Al Mada group play in political and cultural life in Iraq and this has upset some people who don’t wish this country well,” it went on to say.
Al Mada demanded an “immediate” probe be launched into the attack to uncover “the parties behind it who are spiteful of Iraq’s cultural and social prosperity.”
Karim played a pivotal role in the post-2003 political process in Iraq. He was a prominent opponent of Saddam Hussein’s regime for three decades.
