Gunmen kill 23 Iraqi religious sect members

ny daily

BAGHDAD - Gunmen shot and killed 23 members of an ancient Christian religious sect yesterday after stopping their bus and separating them from followers of other faiths, police said.

The gunman checked identifications and removed Christians from the bus before driving with the Yazidis to eastern Mosul, where they were executed, Police Brig. Mohammed al-Wagga said.

Yazidi is a primarily Kurdish sect that worships an angel figure considered to be the Devil by some Muslims and Christians.

Abdul-Karim Khalaf, a police spokesman for Ninevah Province, said the killings were in response to the stoning two weeks ago of a Yazidi woman. She ran off with a Muslim but was dragged home to Bashika by her family and stoned to death, Khalaf said.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, meanwhile, refuted widespread reports of "a civil or sectarian war" yesterday.

He also said he would halt construction of a U.S. military-proposed barrier that would have separated a Sunni enclave from surrounding Shiites in Baghdad.

In all, at least 72 people were killed or found dead in Iraq yesterday, including 24 bullet-riddled bodies.

The U.S. military also reported the deaths of three soldiers - two in attacks in Baghdad on Saturday and a third from an unidentified noncombat cause.