BAGHDAD — BAGHDAD — Assailants burst into the home of an Iraqi campaign volunteer before dawn Monday, fatally shooting the man before they stabbed his pregnant wife and their five daughters to death, relatives and authorities said. A sixth child, the only son, was found hanging from a ceiling fan with key arteries severed, a cousin said.
Over the last week and despite warnings that it was too dangerous, 47-year-old Hussein Majeed Marioush had been hanging campaign posters in the volatile mixed-sect district of Zafaraniya, a semi-rural area on the outskirts of southern Baghdad. He was a volunteer for Entifadh Qanbar, a secular candidate and longtime associate of the controversial politician Ahmad Chalabi. Both are running on the main Shiite Muslim ticket in parliamentary elections March 7.
By late Monday, no clear motive had emerged in the killings. Iraqi authorities offered scenarios including a robbery, a financial dispute and sectarian violence. Qanbar and Marioush’s family, however, thin that the slayings were retaliation for his campaign work with the Iraqi National Congress, Chalabi’s political party. The party has led the push to remove former members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party from state jobs and to disqualify them from running in elections.
“This is a completely political message,” Qanbar said. “There’s no family feud, no robbery, no case of someone hating someone so much that they kill a whole family with six children. This is political.”
Qanbar provided McClatchy Newspapers with cell-phone images taken from inside the house. One shows Marioush, the father, with a blood-soaked head. Another is a close-up shot of Widad Ibrahim Ali, the mother, with her throat slit so severely that she’s nearly decapitated. Three of the five slain girls lie in blood-spattered clothing.
Ahmed, the 6-year-old boy, whose hands appear to have been tied behind his back in the photo, was found hanging from the ceiling fan.
Local news channels initially reported the deaths as beheadings, while other news agencies reported “some” beheadings among the dead. Security officials from various agencies gave statements that differed slightly from the family’s version as to the manner of and possible motive for the killings, but no one disputed that a particularly savage attack had claimed an entire family. Four suspects were in custody late Monday, police said.
“This is a very clear message,” said Abdullah Hassan Karim, a cousin of Marioush’s who had recruited him for the campaign. “The whole crime is related to his work. The enemies of the past and those who want to destroy Iraq are many.”
McClatchy Newspapers special correspondent Laith Hammoudi and Jane Arraf of The Christian Science Monitor contributed to this article from Baghdad.
