Targeted killings in Iraq have U.N. concerned

BAGHDAD – The number of Iraqis slain “execution-style” surged last month, the U.N. said Sunday, raising fears of a return of the death squads that killed thousands during the darkest days of sectarian violence that followed the U.S.-led invasion.

The increase in targeted killings comes even though the U.N. reported that the overall death toll for November dropped to 659, compared with 979 in October. More than 8,000 people have been killed since the start of the year.

In an example of other dangers facing Iraqis, three bombs tore through the funeral procession of the son of an anti-al-Qaida Sunni tribal chief northeast of Baghdad, the deadliest in a wave of attacks that killed 17 people Sunday, Iraqi officials said.

“It seems that history is always repeating itself in Iraq,” said Qassim Haider, a Shiite owner of a menswear shop in eastern Baghdad. He said he has stopped accepting invitations to visit friends in mainly Sunni neighborhoods due to fears of violence.

Widespread chaos nearly tore the country apart following the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein. The violence ebbed in 2008 after a series of U.S.-Iraqi military offensives, a Shiite militia cease-fire and a Sunni revolt against al-Qaida in Iraq, but that trend was reversed after a deadly April 23 crackdown by security forces on a northern Sunni protest camp.

The November casualty toll included 565 civilians and 94 security forces killed and 1,373 Iraqis wounded in attacks, according to the U.N. mission in Iraq.

Baghdad and surrounding areas saw the highest number killed last month, at 224, followed by the volatile northern Ninevah province, with 107.

In all, at least 7,157 civilians and 952 Iraqi security forces have been killed since January, the U.N. said.

U.N. envoy to Iraq Nickolay Mladenov singled out an increase in the number of bodies found, including some that were beheaded, and urged the Iraqi government to move quickly to find the attackers and hold them responsible.

Last week, Iraqi police found 31 bodies of men, women and children who were shot in the head in three separate locations around Baghdad, recalling the height of sectarian violence in 2006-2007 when extremists abducted and killed members of other religious groups, although the numbers remain significantly lower.

“I am profoundly disturbed by the recent surge in execution-style killings that have been carried out in a particularly horrendous and unspeakable manner,” Mladenov said.