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By Associated PressThe member of the Governing Council was returning from mediation efforts in Najaf. Her son is missing after the attack.
BAGHDAD - Gunmen ambushed a convoy carrying a member of the Iraqi Governing Council as she was returning Thursday to Baghdad from mediation efforts in Najaf. The council member survived, but at least one bodyguard was killed and her son was missing, aides said.
Salama al-Khafaji, who joined the council when she replaced another female Shiite who was assassinated, was in a three-vehicle convoy that came under fire in the town of Yusufiyah. A bodyguard was killed and another was critically wounded, according to chief aide Fateh Kashef al-Ghataa.
He said the car carrying Khafaji's 18-year-old son, Ahmed Fadel, plunged into an irrigation canal, and survivors said they saw him swimming away. However, he was still missing, Kashef al-Ghataa said.
He said U.S. troops sealed off the area while search parties looked for the missing son.
"Everyone fought the attackers, including Ahmed," Kashef al-Ghataa said.
It was unclear whether Khafaji was wounded in the attack. Kashef al-Ghataa said only that she was taken to a "secret location" for security reasons.
The ambush occurred 10 days after the head of the Governing Council, Izzadine Saleem, was assassinated in a suicide car-bombing as he waited to enter the heavily guarded Green Zone, the Baghdad headquarters of the U.S.-run occupation authority.
A group believed to be led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a terrorist linked to al-Qaida, claimed responsibility in a message posted on an Islamist Web site.
However, the attack against Khafaji took place in an area notorious for ambushes and carjackings, and it was unclear whether she was specifically targeted. Vehicle convoys are especially vulnerable to such attacks because Iraqis associate them with civilian contractors and security agents working for the coalition.
Khafaji is one of three women on the Governing Council. She replaced another female Shiite member, Aqila Hashimi, who died in September after an ambush near her Baghdad home.
Khafaji was among several Shiite council members who traveled to Najaf on Thursday to help nail down a deal to stop the fighting in the holy city between U.S. soldiers and Shiite militiamen loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
A professor of dentistry at Baghdad University, Khafaji has been a rising star on the Iraqi political scene since she joined the Governing Council in December.
Her conservative dress - a black chador that covers her entire body except for the face - makes her an exception among professional women in Iraq, most of whom wear headscarves or no traditional Islamic covering at all.
She recently said that she objected to military solutions to the standoff with Sadr or the fighting between Sunni insurgents and U.S. Marines in the city of Fallujah west of Baghdad.
On Wednesday, she said that she planned to continue working on "the Iraqi street" after the demise of the Governing Council on June 30, when a transitional government is scheduled to take over from the U.S.-led coalition.
"I have always worked on the street with the masses. Joining the Governing Council helped me help people more," she said.
She also suggested that she would run for a seat in Parliament in the general election due to be held by Jan. 31.