Ninewa police deny assassination bid on Shabak MP

NINEWA / IraqiNews.com: Shabak MP Haneen al-Qado from the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) was not targeted by an assassination attempt earlier today, a police source from Ninewa said on Wednesday. “A heated controversy took place between al-Qado’s driver and the driver of a Ninewa provincial council member from the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC), during which bullets were shot in the air,” the source told IraqiNews.com news agency. “One of the bullets hit the vehicle of Qado, who was not inside at the time,” the souce added. Earlier today, Qado said that he had survived an attempt on his life while he was commemorating the Ashuraa anniversary in Mosul city. Shiites commemorate the killing of Imam Hussein Ibn Ali, his brother and friends in Karbala in the battle of Taf on Muharram 10, 61 (October 10, 680 AD on the Gregorian calendar). The Shabak people are an ethnic group that lives primarily in the province of Ninewa in Iraq. Their language, Shabaki, is a Zaza-Gorani dialect, similar to Kurdish, with many borrowings from Turkish, Persian, and Arabic. According to another source, they speak a dialect of Kurdish with borrowings from Arabic and Turkish. They are scattered throughout 35 villages located in the east of Mosul. While Kurds considered the Shabak ethnically Kurds, they identified themselves as Shiites and a separate ethnic group. Mosul, the capital city of Ninewa province, lies 405 km north of Baghdad. SS (S)/SR 1