SULAIMANIYAH: Gunmen wearing Iraqi military uniforms slaughtered 16 Kurdish villagers on Saturday, officials said, blaming Al-Qaeda for the massacre.
Brigadier General Nadhim Sharif, commander of Iraqi border forces in Diyala Province, said the gang stormed the village of Qara Lus, near the Iranian border, 100 kilometres northeast of Baghdad, at dawn.
A US military spokesman said the military was investigating reports of the attack that had been received from the Iraq army.
"They report AIF (insurgents) dressed in Iraqi army uniforms killed 15 civilians and wounded one other," he said.
The mayor of the nearby town of Mandali, Abdul-Hussein Murad, confirmed Sharif's report that 15 men had been killed and added that a woman was also among the victims, bringing the death toll to 16.
Sharif said the gunmen arrived at 6:00 am (0200 GMT) and went house to house, masquerading as security forces on a legitimate mission.
"They then searched the houses and ordered the people to leave. They separated men from the women and children and then they shot at the men, killing 13 immediately and two others a little later," he said.
The commander blamed the attack on the so-called "Islamic State of Iraq", an alliance of Sunni militant groups that serves as a front for Al-Qaeda in Iraq and has a strong presence in the war-torn province of Diyala.
Qara Lus is a small community of Failis, or Kurdish Shiites, a minority group that has been targeted in the past by Sunni extremists.
