On March 25, three candidates for the parliamentary elections in Iraq were subject to an assassination attempt in Diyala province. The candidates miraculously survived.
In the same month, a candidate from the Mutahidoun bloc, led by parliament Speaker Osama al-Nujaifi, was killed in an armed attack by unknown assailants north of Ninevah. Moreover, Abdul Karim Dosari, another candidate of the Mutahidoun bloc, was assassinated in the city of Basra along with two of his bodyguards on April 27.