Gunmen slaughter cop's family
2007-08-14 15:38
Baghdad - Gunmen slaughtered the pregnant wife of a police officer early on Tuesday, his brother and 12-year-old son, while three women and a man were shot dead in their sleep, in a night of vicious violence in Iraq.
Police Major Akil Radi Edan from the town of Suweira, 50km south of Baghdad, said his two other sons were wounded when armed men swarmed into his house and blazed away at those inside.
"I was not in the house at the time of the attack. They killed my pregnant wife, my brother and my 12-year-old son," Edan said.
The attack was confirmed by First Lieutenant Ali Muhsan of Suweira police.
Suweira has been regularly targeted by insurgents since the outbreak of sectarian strife across Iraq and police frequently fish tortured corpses from the Tigris river that flows through the majority Shi'ite town.
In a separate pre-dawn attack, gunmen killed three women and a man in the mainly Shi'ite village of Ghraiya northeast of Baghdad in the restive province of Diyala, a local medic said.
Doctor Ahmed Fuad from the general hospital in the provincial capital of Baquba said the attackers shot dead the four people "who were sleeping on the roof of their house".
'Eliminate the terrorists'
Fuad said his hospital had also received bodies of three insurgents who were killed in a separate battle with Iraqi soldiers.
The US military, meanwhile, said a major assault is under way in Diyala to flush out Al-Qaeda insurgents.
Operation Lightning Hammer in the Diyala River Valley is part of Operation Phantom Strike launched on Monday across Iraq targeting al-Qaeda hideouts and Shi'ite extremists.
About 16 000 Iraqi and US troops are participating in Operation Lightning Hammer backed by attack helicopters and war planes, the military said.
"Our main goal with Lightning Hammer is to eliminate the terrorist organisations throughout MND-N (multinational division north) and show them that they truly have no safe haven," said Major General Benjamin Mixon, commander of MND-N.
- AFP