BAGHDAD, June 4: Gunmen in Iraq dragged 24 people, mostly teenage students, from vehicles and shot them dead, police said, as violence raged in the country on Sunday. Iraqi leaders appeared deadlocked on naming new interior and defence ministers seen as critical to restoring stability in a country bloodied by relentless insurgent and sectarian killings.
Police said gunmen manning a makeshift checkpoint near Udhaim stopped cars approaching the small town 120 km north of Baghdad and killed passengers.
The victims included youths of around 15-16 years who were on their way to the bigger regional town of Baquba to write end of term exams, but also elderly men, they said.
“(The attackers) dragged them one by one from their cars and executed them,” said a police official.
The killings took place in Diyala province, scene of frequent attacks by Sunni insurgents waging a campaign of bombings and shootings to topple the new Iraqi government.
Some tried to flee but were gunned down, a police source said. Reuters photographs showed six men shot in the chest, including one old man and five young men.
It was among the worst violence Iraq’s second city has seen since US-forced invaded to topple Saddam Hussein in 2003.
Communal violence has mounted throughout Iraq since the February bombing of shrines of Imam Ali Naqi and Imam Hassan Askari, touching off a wave of revenge killings that sparked fears of civil war.
The United States, which has 130,000 troops in Iraq, hopes Maliki’s broad coalition of majority Shias and minority Sunnis and Kurds will be able to defuse the violence.
Key to that will be the naming of non-sectarian interior and defence ministers who can quell communal and insurgent attacks.
Intense wrangling forced Maliki to leave the posts empty when he unveiled his government of national unity on May 20. He has threatened to present his own nominees to parliament if political blocs fail to agree on candidates.
Government sources had said leaders were close to a deal to present to parliament on Sunday former Shia army officer Farouk al-Araji for interior minister and Sunni General Abdel Qader Jassim, commander of Iraqi ground forces, for defence.
“I really do believe they’ll get it settled in the next few days. But the important thing here is that they get it right,” US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told Fox News on Sunday.
“And when they get it right, and they will get it right, everybody will forget how long it took them. What will matter is that they have the very strongest ... defence and interior ministries.”
Political sources said the powerful Shia Alliance was deadlocked on a nominee for the Interior Ministry post. They said the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, one of the dominant parties in the Alliance, had threatened to reject Araji’s nomination.—Reuters
