Kurdish MP in Iraqi parliament stabbed outside Sulaimani home

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — A Kurdish member of the Iraqi parliament was stabbed on Friday in front of his house in Sulaimani by an unknown assailant, a close friend of the MP told Rudaw.   

Ghalib Mohammed Ali, an outspoken critic of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), had returned to his home in Sulaimani city late in the  afternoon when he was “stabbed in the head” while taking shopping bags out of his car, the MP’s close friend Wrya Mohammed told Rudaw. 

He was taken to Sulaimani's Shar Hospital before being discharged. 

“A quarter of an hour before he was stabbed, we were together in Saholaka [street]. There were about six of us. Fifteen minutes later, he called us, saying that he had been attacked. He asked us to go to his home as his family was terrified," said Mohammed.

An investigation has been launched into the incident, according to the Kurdistan Region Deputy Prime Minister Qubad Talabani. 

He condemned the attack in a tweet, saying that the security forces “have been assigned to carry out a detailed investigation on the incident and make the attackers face the law.”

The deputy PM spoke with Ali on the phone and “assured him that this cowardly act will not be tolerated by anyone.”

Ali and 14 other colleagues from different Kurdish blocs in the Iraqi parliament formed the Hope Coalition in mid-January. 

The Coalition said the attack was “expected” because Ali had previously warned Kurdish and Iraqi institutions that he had received threats for his criticism of the KRG.