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,
about 20 miles south of
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, believe that the slayings were retaliation for his campaign
work with the
“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
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
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 son, whose hands appear to have been
tied behind his back, hangs 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
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
Qanbar said Marioush had signed up to distribute
posters for his campaign after an introduction through Karim, who had
attended high school with Qanbar. At a campaign meeting last week,
Qanbar said, Marioush had seemed determined to hang posters in his
neighborhood of Wahda even though others tried to dissuade him.
Marioush and his family were Shiites and parts of his district are
known for Sunni Muslim insurgent activity, including sectarian attacks
on Shiites.
“He said, ‘No, there’s a Shiite area that’s safe and
a Sunni area that’s bad, and I’ll only hang them on the Shiite side.’
He told us he could do it without anyone knowing,” Qanbar said. “He
took posters and other campaign stuff, and I got a call the next day
that he was doing a great job.”
Karim said his cousin worked as a taxi driver and
described him as a “peaceful” family man who had gotten involved in
politics only recently and had received no previous threats. He said a
mass burial was scheduled for Tuesday.
“We will raise banners demanding that the government
find and execute the killers in the same place where they committed
this crime,” Karim said.
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(c) 2010, McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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