Baghdad death squad kills eight workers, wounds six
The motive of the attack at the al-Ibtikar trading company in the upscale Mansour neighbourhood was not immediately clear. According to survivors’ accounts to police, the assailants first asked for the company’s manager, who was not there, before firing on the employees.
The survivors said the assailants, some of whom were wearing police uniforms, identified themselves as intelligence agents from the Iraqi Interior Ministry. Hundreds of Iraqis have been killed in sectarian violence and by death squads operating inside the Shi’ite-dominated Interior Ministry since the February 22 bombing of an important Shi’ite shrine in Samarra set off a wave of revenge attacks. Usually, the victims are killed secretively, their bodies discovered hours or days later.
