By SPA
Samarra, Iraq : Gunmen shot dead nine members of an Iraqi family after storming their house in the village of Awja, north of Baghdad, on Thursday, police said, according to Reuters.
“They attacked the house at 4 a.m. and opened fire,” said a policeman who was at the scene but who declined to be named. “They killed the husband, his wife and their seven sons. We don’t yet know why.”
Speaking from a hospital in nearby Tikrit, where the bodies were brought, another policeman said the dead included a seven year old boy.
The U.S. military says attacks nationwide have decreased 60 percent since June, but operations by U.S. troops and government forces are ongoing in northern Iraq to flush out Sunni Arab al Qaeda, blamed for a string of bomb attacks in the region.