BAGHDAD, Iraq – Gunmen opened fire Sunday on a convoy carrying Iraq's minister of public works, killing a driver and a bodyguard and injuring two others, the U.S.-led coalition said. The minister, Nisreen Berwari (search), was unharmed.
Berwari was returning to Mosul (search) from a meeting in the city of Dohuk when her convoy was attacked, said Kristi Clemens, a coalition spokeswoman in Baghdad.
Saro Qader (search), an official with the Kurdistan Democratic Party, described the attack as an "assassination attempt." Berwari is a member of the Kurdish party.
Iraqi police said the attack occurred about 11 a.m. in al-Karama neighborhood in Mosul. They said the two men who were killed were both bodyguards, and that Berwari was in a second car that was not hit by gunfire.
Berwari is one of five Kurdish ministers in the coalition-appointed interim government. There are 20 other ministers.
She earned a degree at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government in 1999.
Previously, Berwari was development minister in the Kurdistan regional government, and she also served with United Nations organizations in Iraq. Her current portfolio as national minister includes work on roads, water, urban planning and sanitation.
Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox