BAGHDAD: A senior Iraqi official was killed at his home and a woman and her daughter were discovered dead, likely tortured, in separate incidents in Baghdad, an interior ministry official said Thursday.
"Armed men entered the house of Mohammed Jalab Ahmed, the deputy director general of the ministry of health and shot him in his garden," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The killing took place at around 9:00 pm (1800 GMT) on Wednesday in Ahmed’s home in the north Baghdad neighborhood of Salikh.
Murders of civil servants remain common in Iraq, although they have declined in their frequency in recent years as the security situation across the country has improved.
The interior ministry official added that the corpses of a woman and her daughter, both of whom were shot dead, were discovered in Bassateen district, north Baghdad.
The bodies "bore signs of torture", the official said. He declined to give details on possible motives for the murders.
And in Baquba, 60 kilometers north of Baghdad, one member of a militia opposed to Al-Qaeda was killed and five wounded in a mortar attack on their camp, said a security official who did not want to be named.
