BAGHDAD, Oct 14: Gunmen slaughtered a family of ten in a village south of Baghdad on Friday night.
The gunmen attacked a farmhouse in Saifiyah and killed the family, including five women and three children, in an attack apparently motivated by sectarian hatred.
At the same time, Shia pilgrims from the south and centre of the country were streaming towards Najaf, many on foot, to mark the martyrdom of Hazrat Ali.
“We expect that close to a million people will enter the city tonight and tomorrow morning,” said Khaled Jawad, a member of the Imam Ali shrine’s administrative committee. Security measures are intense, however, with only specially licensed cars allowed into the city centre where the golden-domed shrine of Hazrat Ali is located.
Most people had already fled the predominantly Shia village of Saifiyah in a mainly Sunni area just south of Baghdad that has been a frequent target recently of gunmen believed to have links to local tribes.
Bands of Shia militiamen arrived from Baghdad a week ago and engaged the tribesmen in a gun battle that prompted the intervention of US forces.
More than 100,000 people have been displaced from their homes in the past three years as gunmen target civilians from rival communities.
Iraqi police found the corpses of 14 murder victims around Baghdad between dawn on Friday and Saturday — many riddled with bullets and showing signs of torture.
In Suweira village, another four bodies were recovered from the Tigris river, all without heads.
In the town of Balad, police reported finding their own grim harvest of 26 bodies. The men had all been kidnapped on Saturday morning.—AFP
