ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 29021, 9 October 1959, Page 11

ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT

Kassem Wounded By Gunman

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

(Rec. 10 p.m.) CAIRO, October 8. Iraqi authorities were today still looking for the gunman who wounded their Prime Minister, General Kassem, with three bullets, in an assassination bid last night. The Military Governor, General Ahmed Saleh Abdi, broadcast an appeal over Bagdad Radio for calm and order “so that the authorities may arrest the criminals.”

A medical bulletin issued by the Iraqi Minister of Health and a medical committee said that the gunman fired several shots at the Premier, and hit him in three places. “His injuries are superficial and are not dangerous. The state of Tais health does not call for any worry and he is resting,” the bulletin said. The bulletin reported that one of the bullets hit the ”rime Minister’s upper arm and “broke a bone.”

The assassination attempt was made in Bagdad’s main thoroughfare, Raschid street, while General Kassem was being driven home from the Ministry of Defence in his station waggon.

The Military Governor said: “Authorities are conducting an intense investigation.” He appealed to the population to attend to their work normally and banned demonstrations and gatherings of more than five persons throughout Iraq. It was reported that at least one and possibly two officers of General Kassem's escort were killed in the incident. One Cairo report said that several other officers were injured when a hail of bullets hit the general's car-

Crowds of anxious citizens swarmed into the streets after news of the assassination attempt had been broadcast, chanting “All our lives for Kassem’s” and “There is no leader but Kassem.”

Cairo newspapers reported today that wide-scale arrests of nationalists had taken place, in Bagdad since the attempted assassination of General Kassem.

“Al Ahram” said Bagdad lived through a night of terror with shots piercing the night, as people hurried home “fearing the horrifying revenge for the attempt against General Kassem's life.”

LESSONS IN FRENCH

Men Misconstrue Advertisement

LONDON, Oct. 8. The embarrassing story of a French girl who advertised in London that she would give “French lessons in her spare time'' was related by the “Guardian” today. The girl, doing domestic work in Britain, put two advertisements in the windows of tobacconists in the ultra-respectable Kensington Church street district.

She did not realise that since recent legislation swept prostitutes off London streets they have been resorting to delicatelyworded shop window advertisements.

A “Guardian" columnist, telling the story, said the French girl’s action “may seem rather naive, but she had done it on two earlier visits to Britain last year and early this year without anyone misconstruing it. “This time, however, the house w here she works has been deluged with telephone calls from men, very few of whom have expressed much interest in the past anterior or the pluperfect subjunctive.”

The “Guardian” writer commented: “This raises an interesting possibility “As the extent of prostitutes’ advertising and its range of euphemism increase, it will become more and more difficult to use tobacconists’ windows for advertising anything else. “Soon the prostitutes may have it all to themselves; and what’s to stop them hiring hoardings, moving into newspapers, taking time on television? “So much current advertising has a really nasty quasi-erotic tone that some straight ‘Sylvia gives French lessons, manicure and modelling session’ copy might be a distinct improvement.”