Suspected al-Qaeda attacks kill 14 in Iraq while gangs target the young

ATTACKS AGAINST police, a local government office and jewellery shops in Iraq killed 14 yesterday as the Iraqi government made preparations for the annual Arab summit scheduled to meet in Baghdad at the end of the month.

Although there was no immediate claim of responsibility, al-Qaeda in Iraq was suspected of carrying out the operations. The organisation often strikes such official targets and has been known to finance its activities with proceeds from robberies.

This routine violence coincided with reports that scores of young people have been murdered because they are suspected of being gay or because they dress in a blend of fashionable western styles called “emo” (from emotional), featuring long hair, tight jeans, T-shirts adorned with skulls, and distinctive jewellery.

While the authorities have denied anyone has been murdered for adopting emo, a subculture seen as being gay, an interior ministry official admitted 58 gay or emo Iraqis have been killed over the past six weeks by unidentified gangs.

Some victims have had their heads smashed between two cement blocks, some have been pushed off the roofs of high buildings, and others have been shot.

While most appear to have been killed in Shia neighbourhoods of Baghdad or conservative Shia towns by Shia vigilantes, Sunnis have also been targeted. The 2012 toll could be as high as 100.

On February 13th, the interior ministry issued a statement saying police had been “following up on the phenomenon of ‘emo’ or Satanists” by going into schools to find adherents and had been given approval to “eliminate them as soon as possible”. Although officials denied this meant by force, ultraconservative youths appear to have taken matters into their own hands.

Since then leaflets identifying 32 gay men and one gay woman have been circulated by a group calling itself the “Angry Brigade” in the capital’s Shia districts, threatening death if they do not “mend their ways”.

Another flyer warned emo youths to cut their hair and change out of “devil’s clothing” or face dire consequences.

While the police seem to have turned a blind eye, radical Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has said emo beliefs “are a plague on Muslim society” but argued “those responsible should eliminate them through legal means”.

Ammar Hakim, leader of the Shia Islamic Supreme Council, has said emo is “far from our norms, tradition and religious and ethical constants” but has stated his rejection of violence.