Skip to main content

Gunmen disguising soldiers kill 13 in Baghdad

Tuesday, November 17, 2009 BAGHDAD: Gunmen wearing Iraqi army uniforms abducted and killed at least 13 people in a village west of Baghdad, in what some described as revenge against Sunnis who helped fight al-Qaida, Iraqi officials said Monday.The exact motive for the attack was unclear, but it could be a case of insurgents killing locals allied to the central government or an internal struggle among the region's fractious tribes ahead January's elections.The victims included a member of the country's main Sunni political party and several of his relatives, said party official Mohammed Iqbal, suggesting a political motive to the attack.While members of the Iraqi military have been accused in the past of taking part in extra-judicial killings, such uniforms are also widely available on the open market and have been used by insurgents in the past to conceal their identities.Violence has dropped dramatically in the predominantly Sunni regions of western Iraq after local tribes, many of whom had been involved in the anti-U.S. insurgency, banded together in so-called Awakening Councils and turned on their former allies, the militant group al-Qaida in Iraq.The mayor of Abu Ghraib, Shakir al-Zubaie, told media that none of the people killed in the nearby village of al-Saadan were members of the local Awakening Council, but said some had fought against al-Qaida for a short time in early 2008.The Iraqi Islamic Party condemned the killings, describing the deaths as a revenge attack against people who had helped stabilize the area."The IIP condemns this ugly crime and it is a worrisome indication that the situation might be deteriorating and it represents a revenge against the people who had helped stabilize the area," the statement read. "This heinous crime reminds us of the crimes committed during the past years of insecurity. The people behind this crime are aiming at seeding insecurity and turmoil in the area."All 13 had been shot in the head, possibly execution-style, as well as elsewhere in their bodies, said Waleed al-Zubaie of the police.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

India's swine flu death rate is increasing

Friday, August 14, 2009 MUMBAI: A 26-year-old woman died Thursday of H1N1 swine flu in the southern city of Bangalore, raising India's death toll from the virus to 20, authorities said.The death was the first reported in India's information technology capital, the Press Trust of India reported.Meanwhile in Pune, the worst-affected in India, two more victims of the virus died Thursday, raising the death toll in that western city near Mumbai to 12, the report said. The victims were an 11-month-old boy and a 75-year-old old woman.US media reported movie halls, schools and colleges were ordered closed Thursday for three days to a week in Mumbai, the commercial and financial capital of the country, as fear of the pandemic spread.Prajakata Lavangare, a spokeswoman for the government of Maharashtra state of which Mumbai is the capital, said similar orders were issued in Pune, which is also located in the state.The woman who died in Bangalore was identified only as Roopa, a teacher in...

Snake bite deaths

Monday, July 06, 2009 COLOMBO: The Sri Lankan government recorded some 33,000 snake bites in 2008, with most of the victims coming from remote villages.The Department of Government Information said in a statement that most of the snake bite cases could be fatal if neglected.The statement said snake bites are often neglected in Sri Lanka as victims do not seek treatment at hospitals where advanced medication is available. Instead, the victims rush to traditional type of treatment which could be a risk, reports Xinhua.Snake bites death at domestic level, outside hospitals, go unrecorded, said the statement.Most victims of snake bite are from the rural and remote villages where there is no electricity after dusk.Statistics show that Sri Lanka has over 90 species of snake with around 10 species possessing venom capable of killing a human being.In Sri Lanka the annual death rate due to snake bite envenoming is one of the highest in the world being 6 in 100,000 population.

Suicide bombings kill 18 in Iraq

Thursday, August 13, 2009 MOSUL: At least 18 people, most of them members of the ancient Yazidi religious sect, were killed when two suicide bombers blew themselves up on Thursday in a packed cafe in northern Iraq, a local government official said.At least 31 people were also wounded after the bombers detonated suicide belts packed with explosives in the cafe in Kalaa town, in the district of Sanjar, local district chief Dakheel Qassem Hasoon, told a foreign news agency."Two suicide bombers entered the Cafe Barbaroz at 4:30 pm (1330 GMT) and blew themselves up, killing 18 civilians and wounding 31. Most of the victims were Yazidis," Hasoon said.Kalaa, northwest of the insurgent stronghold of Mosul in northern Nineveh province is predominantly populated by the minority Yazidi religious sect, as well as Arabs and Kurds.The attack is the deadliest since Monday, when 51 people were killed across Iraq, including 28 members of the tiny Shabak sect cut down when two truck bombs det...