Sister's murger gets headlines, brother's murder ignored

I don't get it. Today the fact that the sister of the Iraqi VP was murdered is making big headlines all over the place.

Two weeks ago or so the guy's brother was murdered and that hardly made the news at all. In fact, I don't even recall the incident.

Maybe the press expects a slow news day today. Who knows?

In any event, this is just one more demonstration that the insurgency is in its last throes I suppose.

The sister of Tareq al-Hashemi, Iraq's vice-president, has been shot dead in a southern Baghdad neighbourhood.

An interior ministry official said Mayssun Hashemi was travelling in her car in al-Ilam neighbourhood when "gunmen ambushed her car and sprayed it with bullets, killing her and her driver".

The television station of Hashemi's Iraqi Islamic Party interrupted its programming to show picture's of her bulletriddled and blood-stained mini-bus.

The vehicle had been blocked by a car and gunmen then swarmed the mini-bus and fired 32 shots at Hashemi's sister and her driver, said a station announcer.

An Iraqi Islamic Party official said no one in the neighbourhood rushed forward to provide medical care to the victims out of fear.

Earlier this month, Hashemi's brother, Mahmud, was similarly shot dead in Baghdad.