The governor and chief of police of the southern Iraqi province of Qadisiyah have been killed by a roadside bomb, local security and health officials said.
The bomb struck the governor's convoy in the town of Aajaf on Saturday as the officials headed back to the provincial capital Diwaniyah from the funeral of a tribal sheikh.
"The hospital in Diwaniyah received the governor and police chief, and three other corpses from their security detail," Doctor Hamid Gaati, head of the health directorate, said.
Brigadier General Othman al-Farood, an army commander, said a driver and a bodyguard were among the other victims.
Jasim Azawi, presenter of Al Jazeera's Inside Iraq said the attack was definitely a "targeted assassination".
"These are the top two most senior military and security officers in Diwaniyah, this will be a major setback for the al-Maliki government," he said.
Multiple explosions
A senior security official in Diwaniyah, which is about 130km south of Baghdad, told the AFP news agency that the convoy was hit by multiple explosions.
"More than 10 IEDs [improvised explosive devices] targeted a convoy of the governor and the chief of police on their way back from Aajaf to the centre of the city, killing the governor of Diwaniyah and the chief of police," the official said.
Iraqi state television said the deputy governor had ordered an indefinite curfew from 7pm (1500 GMT) in Diwaniyah after the killings in what the channel called an isolated area without security protection.
The province has seen frequent clashes between Shia groups and US and Iraqi troops. Violence between rival Shia factions has also been on the increase in the area.
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Al Jazeera and agencies
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