Marauding militia butcher families as troops look on

Abdulhussein Ghazal

Residents from the Hurriya District in Baghdad say they were attacked by militias of the so-called Mahdi Army who killed several women and children and forced more than 200 families to flee. The attack took place in the presence of units from the new Iraqi army. The troops did not even interfere to save the victims, the residents said. Many residents went to the streets the second day protesting the massacre which like many others taking place in Iraq went unreported by international media. Hurriya, like many other areas in the capital, is a mixed district but the Mahdi militias of the radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr have the upper hand there. The remaining Sunni families were forced to leave following threats of receiving the same fate if they stayed...

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