Baghdad, Iraq ? In the first assassination attempt against Iraq’s emerging leadership, assailants shot and wounded an Iraqi council member Saturday morning as she was leaving for New York to attend a key U.N. meeting on the nation’s future.

The bold, daylight assault against Aquila al-Hashimi, one of three women on the 25-member fledging Iraqi National Council, showed the vulnerability of those trying to bring governance to Iraq.

No group claimed responsibility, and Iraqi police said they had no suspects. But officials of the U.S.-led coalition believe it was yet another attack by insurgents bent on bringing down the American occupation through attacks on U.S. forces, U.S. interests and cooperating Iraqis.

Until Saturday, council members appeared insulated from the increasing violence.

An ex-Baathist party member, al-Hashimi had a long history of service to the former government of Saddam Hussein. She is likely to have enemies both among ousted Saddam loyalists and those pining for vengeance against former regime leaders.

Council members believe she was targeted because of her new role in the council.

Ahmad Chalabi, the second of nine rotating council presidents, said al-Hashimi’s assailants “were remnants of the Baathists regime and Saddam’s assassins.”

“The members of the Governing Council and ministers will not be intimidated by the terrorists,” he said.

U.S. administrator Paul Bremer added: “This senseless attack is not just against the person of Aquila al-Hashimi. It is an attack against the people of Iraq and against the common goals we share for the establishment of a fully democratic government.”

Al-Hashimi left a family house shortly before 9 a.m. local time in a quiet neighborhood of west Baghdad when at least six gunmen fired rocket-propelled grenades, bullets and a hand grenade at her car, police said.

“I don’t know how they missed killing her,” said Suha Hassan Salah, a neighbor awakened by the gunfire. “She was an easy target.”

Shot in abdomen

Rushed to a nearby Iraqi hospital by guards, al-Hashimi underwent emergency surgery and then was whisked by U.S. forces to an American military medical center at Baghdad International Airport. She was being transferred abroad late Saturday for further treatment, a council member said.

Al-Hashimi suffered stomach injuries after being hit by a single bullet, doctors said. Three of her bodyguards were hit by at least one shot apiece.

“There was a bullet injury in the abdomen, affecting the liver,” Hind Shaker, an Iraqi doctor who operated on her, told reporters. “There was severe internal bleeding. It was a difficult case.”

Still, council members seemed optimistic Saturday night for her recovery.

“She is fine,” Haitham al-Husseini, an aide to fellow council member Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim, told the Associated Press. “She is in stable condition.”

Al-Hashimi was considered one of the most vulnerable council members because of her refusal to accept a high-profile security entourage.

Unlike Chalabi, who travels with as many as 30 guards, al-Hashimi was far less protected.

On Saturday, al-Hashimi rode in a two-vehicle convoy with three guards and her brother in one car and the other car followed with another brother and a few plainclothes Iraqi police, her family said.

Increasingly, several neighbors began to fear for al-Hashimi’s safety as strangers came around in recent days suspiciously asking about her whereabouts, they said.

“She wouldn’t listen,” Hussan Mufidi, a cousin, said of family pleas to increase her guards. “But we never expected this would happen. She is a peace-loving woman.”

Controversial choice

Al-Hashimi was a controversial choice for the council. She was a key aide to former Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz and often traveled with him while he made pleas abroad for Saddam’s government.

Al-Hashimi handled the oil-for-food program for the Foreign Ministry under which the United Nations allowed Iraq to exchange petroleum revenues for aid. She was intimately familiar with the workings of Saddam’s regime and its often-shady finances.

Many Iraqis were dismayed and skeptical of U.S. motives when al-Hashimi was named as a council member because of her past ties. But coalition officials now view her as playing a key role in foreign relations for the new Iraqi leadership, especially because of her close relationships with the United Nations in the past.

Along with Chalabi and several council members, she was en route to New York to attend Tuesday’s Security Council session, at which Iraq is expected to be readmitted to the world body. Al-Hashimi was soon to be named by the council to be the Iraq’s representative to the United Nations.