Gunmen kill judge, 3 bodyguards in Iraq's Kirkuk
Xinhua, September 20, 2015 Adjust font size:
Unidentified gunmen on Sunday killed a judge and three of his bodyguards in the ethnically mixed city of Kirkuk in northern Iraq, a local police chief said.
Ibrahim Khamis al-Obeidi, a judge from the Arab minority in the city of Kirkuk, some 250 km north of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, was shot dead with his three bodyguards by gunmen, Brigadier General Sarhat Abdul Qadir, a police chief in Kirkuk, told Xinhua.
Obeidi was heading to his work in the morning when the attack occurred, Qadir said.
The ethnically mixed city of Kirkuk is part of the disputed areas claimed by the Kurds and both Arabs and Turkomans.
The Kurds want to incorporate the areas on the edge of their Kurdistan region, but their move is fiercely opposed by Baghdad government.
Iraq has been witnessing some of the worst violence in years.
Terrorism and violence have left at least 12,282 civilians dead and 23,126 others injured in 2014, making it the deadliest year since the flareup of sectarian violence in 2006, according to a recent United Nations report. Endit