Story Highlights• Web video reportedly shows execution of 18 Iraqi guards• Men killed in retaliation for rape of a Sunni woman by police, Web site says • Iraq's prime minister says the rape did not happen • Six Sunni men shot to death at a house in a village south of Baghdad Adjust font size:
    BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- An al-Qaeda-affiliated group says it killed 18 kidnapped Iraqi security guards, posting a video of the officers being shot in the back of the head while kneeling in a field. The authenticity of the three-minute video, posted Saturday on a Web site previously used by the Islamic State of Iraq, could not be immediately verified, but it was posted on sites that typically carry the group's messages and videos. One of the Web sites said the men were killed to retaliate for the alleged rape of a Sunni woman by police, whose ranks are made up largely of Shia. Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has said the alleged rape never happened. The group also said it had killed 14 policemen, whose bodies were found Friday in the northeast province of Diyala, in retaliation for the alleged rape. Some of the victims were decapitated, according to a photographer for The Associated Press. The video from the al Qaeda-linked group lasts 3 minutes and 43 seconds and opens showing the men blindfolded in a room. They are in three lines of six, the front line seated; the middle line kneeling; the top line standing. A guard -- whose head is covered -- stands off to the side, pointing a rifle at them. In the last 21 seconds, the video cuts to a scene showing the men kneeling in a field. Two other men holding pistols, their faces covered, stand behind the 18. A third man carrying a flag stands off to the side. Then, a voice says in Arabic, "God be praised," and the firing begins. Judging by the way the bodies lurch forward, it appears that two other people are firing from outside of the camera's view. Meanwhile, six Sunni men were shot to death Saturday execution-style by gunmen who stormed their home in a village south of the Iraqi capital, an official with the Iraqi Interior Ministry told CNN. The official said the gunmen burst into the home in the Mashhada village, near Yusufiya, around 5 a.m., separated the men from the women and children and then shot the men. Relatives of the victims told police that the men had received death threats from Sunni insurgents after participating last month in a reconciliation conference with Shiite tribes in Mahmoudiya. Observers say Al-Maliki is under strong pressure from Washington to take a stronger hand against Sunni insurgents and the Shiite militia that forms part of his power base. In an interview with the AP, he said he will reshuffle his 39-seat Cabinet "either this week or next" and pursue criminal charges against political figures -- and even members of parliament -- linked to extremists. (Full story) Copyright 2007 CNN. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to this report. |
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