Female Iraq election candidate shot dead in Mosul: Police

A woman planning to stand in Iraq's March 7 general election was gunned down on Sunday in the restive northern city of Mosul, police said, just days before campaigning is officially due to start.

A woman planning to stand in Iraq's March 7 general election was gunned down on Sunday in the restive northern city of Mosul, police said, just days before campaigning is officially due to start.

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Suha Abdul Jarallah, a candidate on the list of pro-Western former prime minister Iyad Allawi, was shot dead as she left a house in the Ras al-Jadda neighbourhood in central Mosul, 350 kilometres (218 miles) north of Baghdad.

"She was getting out of a relatives' home when she was shot dead by an unidentified gunman who then fled in a car carrying two other men," the officer said. It was not immediately clear if the killing was politically motivated.

Campaigning for the delayed election, the second since the US-led ouster of dictator Saddam Hussein, is set to begin on February 12.