Armed thieves massacre Iraqi shop owners

Gunmen killed 15 people in raids on a dozen gold shops in Baghdad today in another instance of violent crime replacing sectarian strife .

The men arrived in the south-western district of Baiyaa in five cars, faces covered with traditional Arab headscarves. They set off a roadside bomb near the shops, killing four bystanders.

Then they opened fire on 12 shops, killing nine shop owners or their workers and two bystanders. They threw grenades as a distraction and fled.

As Iraq’s sectarian violence has ebbed, the new threat from violent crime has grown. Today’s attack was one of the deadliest.

Many of those involved are believed to be battle-experienced former insurgents unable to find legitimate work. They often bring the same brutality to their crimes that they showed in the fighting that nearly pushed the country to the brink of Sunni-Shiite civil war in 2006 and 2007.

The result has been a wave of thefts and armed robberies, hitting homes, cars, jewellery stores, currency exchanges, pawn shops and banks.

There are few statistics tracking the number and kinds of crimes, in part because the government remains focused on the bombings and other insurgent attacks that continue to plague Baghdad and Iraq’s north.

But in the minds of the public, crime has become at least as consuming as the violence directly related to the war. And like the lack of electricity and other services, crime is now a top complaint of Iraqis.

Some members of Iraq’s security forces are also involved, perhaps a sign that militants are still infiltrating the security services.

In one of the most sensational crimes in recent years, several members of Iraq’s presidential guards – which protect senior officials – broke into the state-run Rafidain Bank on July 28 and stole about $4.8m. They tied up eight guards at the bank in Baghdad’s central Karradah area and shot each one execution-style.

Last year, Iraq created a military task force to battle gangland-style crime after gunmen with silencer-fitted weapons killed at least seven people during a daylight heist of jewellery stores.