Gunmen kill senior official of Iraqi soccer club

Baghdad, July 18: Unidentified gunmen on Monday shot dead a senior official of one of the leading soccer clubs of the Iraqi premier league, along with four of his family members, a police source said.

Unknown armed men stormed the house of Colonel Basheer al-Hamdani, administrative director of al-Jawiyah (Air Force) soccer club, in the early morning and killed him along with his wife and three sons, Xinhua reported.

The incident took place in Mansour neighbourhood in the western part of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad.

The gunmen also stole some money and property from the house before they fled the scene, the source said.

Iraqi security forces cordoned off the scene and launched an investigation into the incident, the source said.

Terrorist acts, violence and armed conflicts killed 411 Iraqis and wounded 294 others in June across Iraq, the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq said.

Many blame the current chronic instability, cycle of violence, and the emergence of extremist groups, such as the IS, on the US that invaded and occupied Iraq in March 2003, under the pretext of seeking to destroy weapons of mass destruction in the country.