Author:
Publication: Christian Today
Date: November 23, 2007
URL: http://www.christiantoday.com/article/iraqi.school.guard.and.wife.beheaded.as.children.watch/14826.htm
Three suspected al Qaeda militants, including
two sisters, beheaded their uncle and his wife, forcing the couple's children
to watch, Iraqi police said on Friday.
The militants considered that school guard
Youssef al-Hayali was an infidel because he did not pray and wore western-style
trousers, they told police interrogators after being arrested in Diyala province
northwest of Baghdad.
The three cousins executed Hayali and his
wife Zeinab Kamel at the all-boys school in Jalawlah in Diyala province, village
police chief Captain Ahmed Khalifa said.
No further details were available.
Sunni Arab communities across Iraq have been
turning against al Qaeda because of its indiscriminate killings and strict
interpretation of Islam, which includes a ban on smoking in public and forcing
schoolgirls to wear veils.
Sunni Arab tribal sheikhs have been organising
their young men into neighbourhood police units to drive out al Qaeda, a practice
which U.S. and Iraqi officials say has helped bring down violence levels across
Iraq.
Security operations by U.S. and Iraqi troops
have also been targeting al Qaeda in ethnically and religiously mixed Diyala
in recent months after the Sunni Islamist fighters were driven out of western
Anbar province.
The U.S. military said earlier in November
that it was sending 3,000 soldiers home from the province but added that the
overall number of forces in the province would not decrease.
The United States poured an extra 30,000 troops
into Iraq from mid-February in a bid to stop the country from sliding into
sectarian civil war.
U.S. and Iraqi officials say the troop "surge"
and more efficient Iraqi security forces have also helped bring about sharp
falls in U.S. military and Iraqi civilian casualties in the past two months.
