BAGHDAD, Jan 14 (Reuters) - Unidentified gunmen killed a senior Iraqi judge as he drove to work through western Baghdad on Monday, police said.

Appeals court judge Amir Jawdat al-Naeib, who was also a member of Iraq's Supreme Judicial Council, died when gunmen opened fire on his car soon after he left his home in the capital's Mansour district. Naeib's driver was also killed.

The attackers sped away in another car after the attack, police said.

Iraq's Supreme Judicial Council is a supervisory body which also nominates the chief justice and other senior posts.

Militants have frequently targeted judges, academics, other professionals and their families in fighting between Shi'ites and Sunni Arabs.

The violence, in which tens of thousands of Iraqis have died, flared after the bombing of a Shi'ite shrine in Samarra in February 2006 and threatened to tip Iraq into all-out sectarian civil war.

But such attacks against prominent individuals have become less frequent as violence levels have fallen over the past few months during a security crackdown by U.S. and Iraqi forces. (Reporting by Baghdad newsroom; editing by Elizabeth Piper)

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