File photo taken on May 10, 2004 shows Bassam Kubba (3rd L) accompanying Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari (2nd L) during an Arab foreign ministers' meeting in Cairo, Egypt. Kubba, Iraqi deputy foreign minister, was shot dead June 12, 2004 on his way to work in the al-Adhamiya neighborhood in Baghdad, an Iraqi Foreign Ministry spokesman said. Kubba was the first Iraqi government official assassinated since the founding of the Iraqi interim government June 1. (Xinhua Photo)

   BAGHDAD, June 12 (Xinhuanet) -- Iraqi Deputy Foreign Minister Bassam Kubba was shot dead in Baghdad Saturday morning, marking the first assassination of an Iraqi national official since the inauguration of the new interim government on June 1.

    Kubba was shot in the abdomen when attackers opened fire on himaround 7:30 am (0330 GMT) as he was on his way to work from his home in Baghdad's mainly Sunni Muslim Adhamiya district, said a spokesman for the Iraqi foreign ministry.

    Kubba, a Shiite Muslim, died of fatal wounds after being transferred to a Baghdad hospital for urgent medical treatment. His driver survived the attack.

    Kubba, 60, was appointed as director-general of the Iraqi foreign ministry in April. As a veteran career diplomat, he had served as acting chief of the Iraqi mission to the United Nations in New York and as Iraq's ambassador to China during Saddam Hussein's rule.

    The Iraqi foreign ministry blamed the assassination on Saddam's supporters, saying in a statement that the attack "bears all the hallmarks of leftover supporters of Saddam Hussein's evil regime."

    So far, nobody has claimed responsibility for Kubba's death.

    In another development, Qatar-based al-Jazeera TV channel reported that a Lebanese transport worker and two of his Iraqi colleagues have been killed in Iraq by their captors.

    Hussien Ali Alyan was reportedly captured along with four Iraqis about 20 days ago. His body was found along with those of the Iraqis outside Baghdad.

    Alyan, a Lebanese citizen from the southern Lebanese town of Qalawiya, had been working for a Lebanese transport company in Iraq. Another Lebanese hostage, Roger Haddad, was freed under unclear circumstances.

    The kidnapping of foreigners has emerged in Iraq since early April when US forces launched an offensive against Iraqi insurgents in the city of Fallujah and radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr who mounted an uprising against the coalition in central and southern Iraq.

    The coalition admitted that some 40 people of 12 different nationalities had been taken hostage in the first two weeks of April. Some have since been killed, others released and more stillkidnapped

    The post-war Iraq has witnessed the assassinations of several senior officials in the past months.

    Izzadine Saleem, head of the Iraqi Governing Council, was killed in a suicide car bombing on May 17 near a US checkpoint in central Baghdad.

    Salama al-Khafaji, a female member of the governing council, survived an ambush on May 27 when she was returning to Baghdad from Najaf. Her 18-year-old son and one of her guards were killed in the attack.

    British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw on Saturday strongly condemned the killing of Kubba as "a shocking crime."

    "This was a shocking crime. Bassam Kubba, the deputy foreign minister, was a force for good in Iraq. This deplorable act will only serve to strengthen the resolve of those working for Iraq," Straw said in a statement.

    Some experts have expressed concern that more violence will erupt in Iraq before the June 30 transfer of full sovereignty to the Iraqi government.

    The United Nations Security Council unanimously endorsed a new resolution on Tuesday to end the US-led occupation of Iraq and hand over power to a new Iraqi government by the end of June.

    The resolution, among other things, gives Iraq control over the country's security forces and spells out that the US-led troops, which will remain in the country after June 30, will stay only at the request of the Iraqi government. Enditem