Husham Al Hashimi: prominent Iraqi security analyst gunned down

Hind Al Soulia - Riyadh - Prominent Iraqi security expert Husham Al Hashimi was shot dead on Monday night by unknown gunmen outside his house in Baghdad.

Interior Ministry sources said Al Hashimi was taken to hospital where he died shortly after the shooting, AFP reported.

A medical source at the hospital said he suffered "bullet wounds in several body parts".

An investigator said Al Hashimi, 47, walked out of his home in east Baghdad and was getting into his car when three gunmen on two motorcycles fired at him from metres away.

He was wounded and ducked behind his car, but the gunmen approached and shot him four times in the head at close range, the investigator said.

Born in Baghdad in 1973, he was a well-respected security analyst who wrote extensively about ISIS and Al Qaeda, including three books, and advised the current and past governments on terror and extremist groups.

He was strongly in favour of the popular protests that erupted across Baghdad and Iraq's Shiite-majority south in October, which slammed the government as corrupt, inefficient and beholden to neighbouring Iran.

Al Hashimi had been working closely with Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al Kadhimi and he was a member of the Iraq Advisory Council, a panel of prominent experts and former policymakers.

A prolific tweeter with 147,000 followers, he posted less than an hour before the news of his death.

Al Hashimi's last post was on the divisions forming in Iraqi politics since Mr Al Kadhimi took office in May.

Many of his followers expressed their condolences and shock under his final message.

While more than 500 were killed in mass protests that erupted late last year, high-profile political killings have been rare recently.

"Cowards killed my friend and one of the brightest researchers in Iraq, Husham Al Hashimi. I am shocked," wrote Harith Hasan, who was an academic researcher before becoming an adviser to Mr Al Kadhimi. – Additional reporting by AFP