Gunmen wearing Iraqi army uniforms entered a village east of Baghdad early today, removed families from their homes and opened fire on the men, killing 15 of them, an Iraqi general and a Kurdish political party said.
The victims were Kurdish Shias, according to a statement posted on the website of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. The gunmen entered the village of Hamid Shifi, about 60 miles from Baghdad and forced families from their homes, said Brig. Gen. Nazim Sherif.
The assailants then separated the women and children, ordered the men to stand in a single file and gunned them down, he said. Sherif said villagers had received no threats before the attack, which he blamed on al-Qaeda. The village is in Diyala province, an area northeast of Baghdad where violence has risen sharply in the past six months.
Meanwhile five US soldiers were killed in four separate attacks by insurgents in Iraq yesterday and today, taking to eight the number of American soldiers killed in the past 48 hours, the US military said.
In one of the worst attacks, a roadside bomb followed by gunfire killed two soldiers and wounded two others in northeastern Baghdad yesterday, the military said in a statement today.
Another soldier was killed in western Anbar province, a stronghold of the Sunni Arab insurgency, and a fourth was shot dead near Baghdad, also yesterday.
Today, a US soldier died following a roadside bomb attack south of Baghdad. Five other soldiers including two Iraqis were also wounded. Those newly reported deaths came after three US soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb in volatile Diyala province on Friday. Another two were killed in separate attacks on Thursday.
US President George W. Bush is pouring thousands of extra troops into Baghdad and other areas as part of a security crackdown in a last-ditch bid to stop Iraq from sliding into all-out civil war between majority Shi'ites and Sunni Arabs.
The crackdown, which comes as Democrats press Bush to set a timetable for withdrawing troops, is meant to help stabilise Iraq so that political benchmarks set by Washington to further national reconciliation can be met. More than 3,400 US soldiers have died since the conflict began in 2003.