Baghdad, Iraq ? Ten assailants sprayed gunfire Thursday at a minibus picking up a Turkish businessman from a Baghdad hotel, killing six Iraqis and kidnapping the Turk, who reportedly ran a construction company working with Americans.

The gunmen swarmed the bus as it pulled up to the Bakhan Hotel at dawn to pick up the man, identified by police as Abdulkadir Tanrikulu. The gunmen opened fire, killing the bus driver and five of Tanrikulu’s employees, police said. The attackers then sped off with their captive.

It was the latest bloodshed in a surge of violence about two weeks before Iraqis will choose a national legislature.

On Wednesday, gunmen killed a representative of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq’s most senior Shiite Muslim cleric, along with the aide’s son and four bodyguards in a town south of Baghdad, an official in the cleric’s office said Thursday.