3 April 2010 Baghdad shootings

The 3 April 2010 Baghdad shootings was a shooting incident in which a group of men, equipped with Iraqi military garb and vehicles, stormed five houses in a village just south of Baghdad, killing at least 25.

Attack
The attack took place in a Sunni enclave of Albusaifi in the southern part of Baghdad province near midnight on Friday. The shooters arrived in pickup trucks with military uniforms and deceived villagers into thinking they were American by speaking English. The attackers then proceeded to round up people written on a list. Throughout the two-hour ordeal, 25 victims were handcuffed, tortured, and shot in the head and chest with silenced weapons. Of the 25 fatalities, 20 were male and 5 were female. Of these 3 were children. Seven people were found alive with their hands bound after the attack. Police cordoned off the area and helicopters observed from the air. Police experienced trouble securing a perimeter due to the landscape. 25 people were arrested and several confessed.

Motive
Major General Qassim al-Moussawi, a security spokesman, said some of the victims were members of the Iraqi security forces and others of the Awakening Councils. Saad al-Muyalibi, an Iraqi government adviser, said that the killings "could be political, but not linked to the results of [the] elections".

Locals said they believed the attacks were carried out by Sunni extremists against Sunni Arabs who had betrayed them. One Sunni party suggested that the assassinations were supported by foreign political groups. One witness claimed that the attackers were wearing federal police uniforms and alluded that it was a police death squad.