Three of her body guards also were injured, according to a security guard at the al-Yarmouk facility.

An Iraqi security official said al-Hashimi was brought to the hospital at about 10:30 a.m. and immediately was taken to surgery for a bullet wound in the left side of her abdomen.

She was then taken to an unknown location in a U.S. military ambulance still unconscious, said the official who would not give his name.

Members of al-Hashimi’s security detail said the attack was carried out by men in two new SUVs. They fired rocket-propelled grenades that missed her car, then opened fire with Kalashnikov assault rifles.

While at the al-Yarmouk facility, fellow council member Ahmad Chalabi arrived. He was joined by Health Minister Dr. Khudayer Abbas. Chalabi is council president for September.

Mohammed Abdul Ghany, a security official at al-Yarmouk Hospital, said the search for the attackers was under way.

“We will catch those responsible for this vicious crime,” he said.

A policeman, also refusing to give his name, said the attack occurred outs

Meantime, the explosion Friday night in Baghdad kicked up a large cloud of smoke and dust near Martyrs’ Square, where the U.S. military maintains a base. Piles of shrapnel lay about the scene, and a taxi was badly damaged.

In a separate incident, an Italian Foreign Ministry official in Rome said U.S. soldiers in northern Iraq fired Thursday into a car carrying the Italian official heading U.S. efforts to recover looted antiquities, killing the man’s Iraqi interpreter. The Italian, Pietro Cordone, was unhurt in the shooting at a roadblock between Mosul and Tikrit, the Foreign Ministry official said.

Guerrillas ambushed a U.S. military convoy in Khaldiyah with a remote-controlled bomb Thursday, sparking a heavy gunbattle in which a 3-year-old boy was wounded in the chest and two trucks were destroyed. Two U.S. soldiers were wounded in the attack, the U.S. military said in Baghdad, although it was not known whether the casualties were from the ambush or a separate attack later on a convoy of three Humvees and a truck several miles away.

On Saturday morning, soldiers patrolled through Tikrit and the eastern banks of the Tigris river, site of a deadly attack Thursday by Saddam loyalists. The patrol began late Friday and ended early Saturday. Intended as a show of force, it was also an attempt to flush out pockets of armed resistance in the area.

“We wanted to make contact with the enemy,” Russell said. “If they want, we’ll surely oblige him.”

Some topics in this essay:
, Shiite Muslim, Foreign Ministry, DEVELOPMENTS Guerrillas, Fifty-eight Iraqis, Saddam Hussein, Saba Adel, Abdul Ghany, Jim Avila, George Krivo, ministry official, foreign ministry official, foreign ministry, american troops, security official, saddam loyalists, lt col, saba adel, al-yarmouk hospital, iraqi delegation, efforts recover,