Two Iraqi families slaughtered in pre-polls violence

Gunmen brutally murdered two Iraqi families, killing 11 people in total including six children yesterday as a spate of attacks hit the country less than two weeks before elections.
The family members were killed in their homes in and around Baghdad, while another 11 people died in violence across Iraq, including three in a suicide car bombing and a police commando who was shot dead by a sniper.
The worst incident occurred in Al-Wehdah, a predominantly Shia Muslim town in an ethnically mixed area about 20 kilometres (12 miles) southeast of Baghdad.
"The four gunmen arrived at 5:00 am, they knocked on his door," Baghdad security spokesman Major General Qassim Atta told a news conference, referring to Hussein Majid Marbus, the father of the family that was assassinated.
"He opened the door, they asked him for money. He tried to defend himself and they killed him. After that, they entered the house and they slit the throats of the mother, five daughters and one son."
"We cannot exclude that some insurgent groups were using criminals to create strife before the election."
Atta said the boy was seven years old, while the girls were eight to 15.
Four men, who were arrested at a checkpoint shortly after the murders, were presented to the media blindfolded and interrogated by Atta in front of reporters.
During the questioning, one of the killers, who was named as Haleem, said the gunmen had demanded 150,000 Iraqi dinars (130 dollars) from Marbus, a businessman.
"But he refused, so we killed him," Haleem said.
One knife, two guns, blood-stained gloves, cash and jewellery were recovered from the men.
Atta's office had earlier said some of the family had been beheaded, but said instead at the news conference throats had been slit. The Arabic word for beheading, "dabbah," can also mean the slitting of the throat.
A second family, comprising a mother and her two daughters, was shot dead in their home in the mostly Shia north Baghdad district of al-Hurriyah, a police official said on condition of anonymity.
"Both my sisters arrived yesterday to visit my mother. They killed them all," said Salam al-Saadi, a 28-year-old hospital worker, at the scene of the murders, where blood from the victims was spattered on the floor and the walls.
Neighbours in the area said masked gunmen entered the house around 10:00 pm on Sunday evening, and a commotion broke out soon after.
The execution-style killings occurred ahead of parliamentary elections on March 7, the second legislative polls since dictator Saddam Hussein was ousted after the invasion.
Meanwhile, in the western Iraqi city of Ramadi, a suicide car bomb struck an interior ministry detention centre, killing a man, his six-year-old son and a policeman, said a police officer and a doctor at the city's hospital.