IRAQ: Gunmen kill 16 members of Shi'ite family in Iraq

Record ID: 353925

  • Title: IRAQ: Gunmen kill 16 members of Shi'ite family in Iraq
  • Date: 4th September 2013
  • Summary: MAHMOUDIYA SOUTH OF BAGHDAD, IRAQ (SEPTEMBER 4, 2013) (REUTERS) RELATIVES OF FAMILY MEMBERS KILLED IN LATIFYA WAITING OUTSIDE MORGUE OF MAHMOUDIYA HOSPITAL PEOPLE NEAR COFFINS OUTSIDE MORGUE RELATIVES OF VICTIMS WEEPING MOURNERS GATHERING OUTSIDE HOSPITAL MORGUE MAN WEEPING WOMEN CRYING (SOUNDBITE) (ARABIC) UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN, RELATIVE OF VICTIM, SAYING: "They killed
  • Embargoed: 19th September 2013 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Iraq
  • Country: Iraq
  • Topics: Crime,Conflict,Religion,Religion
  • Reuters ID: LVABWE97UG7T2RSLTA36FP9XC2I7
  • Story Text: Gunmen shot dead 16 members of the same Shi'ite family before blowing up their two neighbouring homes south of the Iraqi capital on Tuesday (September 3) night, police and medics said.
    The attack happened in the town of Latifiya, 40 km (25 miles) south of Baghdad. The dead included six children and eight women.
    "We were in the house when they stormed the house through the windows and shot us, using rifles," a young survivor of the attack, Haneen Monther said.
    "They shot my father in his stomach and shot my sister too. We were in the corner of the room and they kept firing and showering the wall of the room with bullets. We could not hear anything else. Then they exploded a device. Yes, a bomb and we ran out when the room. It was filled with smoke. I went upstairs and my brothers ran to the backyard," she added.
    It was not immediately clear who carried out the attack but Sunni Islamist militants, including an al Qaeda affiliate, have been striking with a ferocity not seen in years.
    More than two years of civil war in neighbouring Syria have aggravated deep-rooted sectarian divisions in Iraq, fraying an uneasy government coalition of Shi'ite, Sunni and ethnic Kurdish factions.
    Separately, a suicide bomber attacked a police headquarters in the northern city of Mosul, killing five policemen early on Wednesday (September 4). A roadside bomb also struck a patrol in Tarmiya, north of Baghdad, killing five soldiers.
    About 800 Iraqis were killed in August, according to the United Nations, with more than a third of the deadly attacks happening in Baghdad.
    The bloodshed, 18 months after U.S. troops withdrew from Iraq, has stirred concerns about a return to the sectarian slaughter of 2006-07, when the monthly death toll sometimes topped 3,000.
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