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25 Family Members Killed in Ambush Near Baghdad

03 April 2010 17:37 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. The killers came at night, speaking passable English and wearing uniforms and carrying weapons that resembled those of the American military, APA reports quoting â€œThe New York Timesâ€ newspaper.
By the time they left the village of Hawr Rajab on Friday evening, they had fatally shot or slit the throats of 25 members of an extended family, Iraqi officials said Saturday, in a chilling episode of violence reminiscent of the worst days of the countryâ€™s sectarian warfare in 2006 and 2007.
Most of the 19 male victims were members of Iraqi security forces or of Awakening Councils, groups that now partner with American forces and are employed by the Iraqi government to protect Sunni neighborhoods, but whose members had once been allied with Sunni extremist groups like Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia during fighting against American troops.
Members of Awakening Councils are often branded by Al Qaeda as traitors, but their families have typically not been attacked. The Iraqi authorities said 25 people had been arrested as part of the investigation into the killings, including some who lived near the families.
Hawr Rajab, just south of Baghdad, was a heavily contested site between Al Qaeda and American and Awakening forces but has been calmer in recent years.
At Mahmudiya Hospital, 25 coffins arrived on a truck Saturday morning for the victims, who ranged in age from teenagers to men in their 70s.
Family members, men standing separate from women, waited outside the hospital, stunned by what had happened.
Luyai Khadum said he had lost his father and four brothers.
â€œThey were all killed,â€ he said. â€œI lost five family members. We are a Dulaimi family, so why would they do this to us?â€
Often, a mention of the familyâ€™s influential tribe, the Dulaimi, is enough to protect them. This time, it was no help.
Capt. Jay Ostrich, a spokesman for the United States military in Iraq, expressed condolences to the victimsâ€™ families and said American forces were prepared to aid in the investigation if the Iraqi government asked.
â€œBy no means were American service members involved,â€ he said in a statement.
Details of the attack remained sketchy on Saturday afternoon, as the Iraqi police cordoned off the neighborhood and ordered a curfew there. The known survivors are all children.
According to accounts by relatives of the victims, neighbors, Iraqi security officials and others, as many as a dozen men wearing what resembled American and Iraqi military uniforms arrived in the neighborhood in a minibus and Iraqi military and police vehicles Friday night.
Witnesses, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said some of the men wore black masks and carried weapons that resembled M-16 rifles, which are used by the American military.
They knocked on the doors of several houses and gathered people at the home of Saif Shaker, an Awakening Council member.
The men said they were part of a joint unit of American and Iraqi soldiers investigating a crime.
Some of the men spoke English translated to Arabic by an interpreter who told the family that the adults â€” men and women â€” should go upstairs, while the children should be left downstairs. They were told not to worry.
Upstairs, their hands were bound. Then, the 16 men and 4 women who had been gathered were shot in the head or chest, the sound of gunfire echoing through the neighborhood.
The children were left crying and shaking with fear.
â€œI came back home and I saw the children inside one of the rooms,â€ said Khalid Ahmed, a family member. He said he did not go upstairs for a few minutes but when he did he found it covered in blood, the bodies of his family on the floor.
Iraqi authorities said after the gunmen fled, they stole the familyâ€™s car and went to the house of Kadham Abbas Saeil al-Dulaimi, another Awakening Council leader.
Again, the armed men claimed to be members of an American and Iraqi military unit, and separated children from adults.
One of men referred to one of the women, Ipti Hal, by name and told her to go upstairs with the other adult members of the family, said Luyai Khadum, a family member who said surviving children had given him that detail.
The men then bound the hands of the three men and two women, including Ms. Hal, and slit their throats, the authorities said.
The armed men stole about $9,000 and the familyâ€™s gold jewelry, said Mr. Khadum.
Mr. Khadum said that on Thursday a group of what neighbors told him was a joint American and Iraqi military force had come to the house but found no one home. He said neighbors told him that the armed men had threatened them with arrest if they told the family they had come to the house.