Mosul: Unidentified gunmen in Iraq have killed two individuals in northern Kurdish city of Mosul, 400 km north of the nation’s capital of Baghdad. Gunmen opened fire on the two, reportedly sisters, using pistols that were equipped with silencers as they were shopping in the Bab al-Saray market district in central Mosul, a local police officer said on condition of anonymity, quoted by Xinhua.A shop owner was also injured in the attack, the report adds without elaborating on whether the killing was an assassination or a random killing.
Various forms of violence have become a near daily occurrence in Iraq in recent months as the US government has made no secret of its strong desire to extend its military presence in the war-torn country past the December 2011 withdrawal date.
The US-led military invasion of Iraq began in 2003 under the false pretext of locating and destroying weapons of mass destruction (WMD) presumably held by the repressive regime of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. However, no WMDs were ever found in Iraq following the American occupation of the country.
The military invasion, meanwhile, led to over a million ‘violent deaths’ among Iraqi citizens, according to a study conducted by the prestigious British polling group, Opinion Research Business (ORB).