Gunmen killed a Sunni Muslim cleric in the city of Miqdadiya Tuesday, the second such killing in Iraq in as many days, witnesses and hospital officials said.
Sheikh Ghaleb al-Zuheir was a member of the Muslim Clerics Association, which aims to speak for the once dominant Sunni minority and which has called for a boycott of January's Iraqi election.
It was not clear whether there was any connection with the drive-by shooting in the northern city of Mosul Monday of Sheikh Feydhi Mohammed al-Feydhi, brother of the association's official spokesman.
Miqdadiya lies 100 km (60 miles) northeast of Baghdad, close to the restive, mostly Sunni, provincial capital of Baquba.
The Muslim Clerics Association was set up with the blessing of the U.S. occupation authorities after the fall of Saddam Hussein's Sunni-dominated administration last year. It says its members have been targeted by U.S. and Iraqi security forces and also by insurgents trying to fuel sectarian unrest.
Many Sunnis, mostly living north and west of Baghdad, fear the election planned for Jan. 30 will hand domination to the long-oppressed Shi'ite Muslim majority in the south.