KIRKUK: Sunni militants summarily executed at least 14 Shias yesterday after setting up a roadblock north of Baghdad, stopping trucks and checking the IDs of drivers, Iraqi
officials said.
The nighttime attack was reminiscent of the darkest days of the Sunni-Shia sectarian bloodshed in Iraq in 2006-2007, when thousands of people were killed because of their religious affiliation or forced to abandon their homes under threat of death.
Lingering tensions between Sunnis and Shias have been inflamed by persistent violence in Iraq and the civil war in neighbouring Syria, and there are growing fears that the country is slipping back towards all-out sectarian conflict.
Two local officials said some 150 militants carried out a coordinated operation during the night that included the highway killings, in the area of Sulaiman Bek, a town north of Baghdad.
The militants began by attacking the town itself with mortar rounds, rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons late on Wednesday.
That attack drew security forces away from the highway connecting Baghdad with the north, after which a group of around 40 militants broke off and set up the checkpoint.
They only maintained it for about half an hour but were able to stop dozens of truck drivers, and executed at least 14 who were Shias. “These criminals belong to what is called the Islamic State of Iraq, and they targeted Shia drivers and left the Sunnis,” local official Shalal Abdul Baban told AFP, referring to an Al Qaeda front group. “It was killing by ID,” he said.
Iraqi identification cards list a person’s name and place of birth, from which religious affiliation can be surmised.
The entire operation, including the attack on the town in which at least one person was wounded, lasted for about three hours, after which the militants withdrew.
Iraqi soldiers surrounded the Sulaiman Bek yesterday and arrested about 150 people following the violence, local official Talib Mohammed Al Bayati said.
“Where were these forces when armed men took control of the road... and executed more than 14 drivers?” he said.
Sulaiman Bek was briefly seized by militants in late April, but the assailants later withdrew under a deal worked out by tribal leaders and government officials, allowing security forces to move back in.
The seizure of the town came amid a surge of violence that began on April 23 when security forces moved in against anti-government protesters near the northern town of Hawijah, sparking clashes in which 53 people were killed. Dozens more died in a wave of subsequent unrest including revenge attacks against the security forces. afp
