12 killed in nationwide violence in Iraq
At least 12 people were killed in violence around Iraq today, while authorities found the decapitated corpses of seven people dumped north of Baghdad in what appeared to be a sectarian revenge killing.
The bodies were found in an orchard in the city of Duluiyah late Friday.
Three were from among a group of 17 construction workers kidnapped Thursday while travelling home to the predominantly Shiite town of Balad, police said.
The corpses of the other 14 workers were found earlier Friday, also all beheaded.
The killings were apparently retaliation for the kidnapping on Wednesday of three Sunni Arabs in Duluiyah by a Shiite militia based in Balad, police said. The three were killed and their bodies burned.
In Diwaniyah, 80 miles south of Baghdad, unidentified gunmen driving by in a car killed teacher Mohammed Muhsin al-Marmadhi as he was leaving his home, police Lt. Raed Jabr said.
A Shiite family of four were killed in Mahmoudiya, about 20 miles south of Baghdad, by unidentified assailants dressed in military-style uniforms who stormed into their house around dawn, army Capt. Oday Abdul-Ridha said.
Seven other people were killed in a mortar attack near Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, provincial police said. Five others were injured in the attack on the village of al-Rasoul.
In Baghdad, a journalist working for government-run TV was killed in a similar drive-by shooting in southern Baghdad on Friday night, police said.
Raed Qais al-Shammari, a technician with the al-Iraqiya station, had been standing near his home talking with a friend when he was shot by an unidentified gunman from a car in the violence-wracked Dora neighbourhood, police Lt. Maitham Abdul Razzaq said.
The attack follows the killings on Thursday of 11 people at Baghdad’s private Shaabiya television station. Shiite militiamen are suspected to have carried out that attack, possibly due to perceptions the newly-formed station was backing their Sunni-Arab rivals.
