By Darrin Simmons
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East
BAHGDAD, Iraq-Gunmen stormed a Shi’ite family killing sixteen people, including six children and five women in an overnight attack on Tuesday. The killings took place in Latifiya, forty kilometers south of Baghdad, a city located in a religiously mixed region known as the “Triangle of Death.”
“Gunmen broke into our house overnight and shot my father four times in the head, they killed my two brothers, they killed my cousin, they were shooting everyone they saw, I escaped from the back door,” said Haneen Mudhhir, a survivor of the attack.
Family and friends of the victims gathered outside of a Baghdad hospital in a moment of distress and anguish. Many wept over the loss of their loved ones as they waited to receive their bodies. One woman, struck by grief, continually cried out, “God is Greatest!”
Another teenage survivor stated “We were sitting in our house when some gunmen opened fire at us through the windows. My father stood and moved toward the door. They shot him dead immediately. They shot my sister dead. They were shooting randomly.”
No group has taken responsibility as violence in Iraq has surged in recent months. The shooting occurred only hours after the death of at least sixty people in a series of car bombs in Bahgdad, the largest explosion come from a busy street in the al-Talibiya district.
Five soldiers were killed in a roadside bomb that exploded as their convoy passed through Tarmiya, fifty kilometers outside of Baghdad. Five police officers were also killed following a suicide bomber attacking a local police headquarters in the city of Mosul.
In the past five months, more than four thousand people have been killed in Iraq, including more than eight hundred in the month of August, according to figures provided by the United Nations office in Iraq.
Increasing death tolls in Iraq have been cited to the withdrawal of U.S. troops eighteen months ago. Concerns have risen that Iraq is headed towards a time similar to the “sectarian slaughter of 2006-07,” where monthly death tolls exceeded three thousand.
The conflict in Syria has also increased violence in Iraq, where Sunni militant groups of al-Qaeda have gained prominence. Shia dominance in Iraq has sided with the Alawite-dominated government in Syria while the Iraqi Sunni have backed the rebels drawn from Syria’s Sunni majority.
For more information, please see the following:
Aljazeera-Sixteen Shia family members killed in Iraq-4 September 2013
BBC News-Iraqi Shia family targeted in deadly attack-4 September 2013
Huffington Post-Iraq Violence: Gunmen Kill 16 Members Of Shiite Family, Blow Up Their Homes-4 September 2013
Sky News-Iraq: Gunmen Kill 16 Members Of Shi’ite Family-4 September 2013
Reuters-Gunmen kill 16 members of Shi’ite family in Iraq-4 September 2013
