BAGHDAD: Masked gunmen swooped on Baghdad jewelers in a morning rampage on Tuesday, killing at least eight people and bombing almost a dozen stores after robbing them.
The stores along a street in the Bayaa neighborhoods of southwest Baghdad were robbed by at least 10 gunmen.
The assailants shot the shops’ owners, who made up the majority of the victims, and then planted bombs.
"More than 10 gunmen in civilian clothes, carrying silencers and machine guns, entered the centre," said an interior ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
"They threw small plastic bombs into 11 shops to create panic so people would leave. Then they went into the shops, robbed everything, and killed the owners.
"Afterwards they ran away — there were cars waiting for them."
Baghdad security spokesman Major General Qassim Atta said seven shop workers and owners were killed along with one policeman and one assailant.
An AFP photographer at the scene counted eight dead bodies and Al-Yarmuk hospital in west Baghdad said it had received eight corpses.
The interior ministry official, however, put the death toll at 14.
Police could not immediately give details on how much was stolen in the robberies.
"Security forces killed one of the assailants and found in his possession a bag filled with gold and jewels," said Atta.
A police officer, who did not want to be identified, said two people were arrested in connection with the violence and added that "women were involved in the attack, as well as civil servants," suggesting possible collusion between the robbers and members of Iraq’s security forces.
State-funded Iraqiya television reported, citing Atta, that the commander in charge of security in the neighborhood had been arrested, along with several officers responsible for the area.
Atta told AFP security forces had put up a perimeter around the Bayaa area and appealed to local residents for help in capturing the remaining assailants.
Crime has been on the rise in Iraq as the level of violence has fallen off from its highs in 2006 and 2007. Security officials say insurgent groups may be carrying out the robberies to obtain much-needed income to fund their operations.
"These gangs work with the aim of financing Al-Qaeda through kidnapping and robbery to fund terrorist operations," Atta said.
In mid-December, Kurdish-speaking robbers in military camouflage entered the largest bank in the northern city of Kirkuk pretending to be hunting a would-be suicide bomber before making off with thousands of dollars.
Eight police guards were killed in a massive bank heist in the Iraqi capital last July. The pre-dawn raid on a branch of Al-Rafidain bank saw the robbers make off with $3.8 million, but the sum was later recovered.
In Iraq’s biggest-ever hold-up, robbers stole $13.5 million from a Rasheed Bank branch in Ramadi, west of Baghdad, in January 2005.
