Former civic body official and family killed

Baghdad: A former city official was stabbed to death along with his wife and daughter in their home in a predominantly Shiite neighbourhood in northeastern Baghdad.

The knife-wielding attackers stormed the two-storey house late on Saturday, killing Ahmad Jwad Hashem, his wife and their daughter, and leaving a visiting nephew seriously wounded, according to police and hospital officials.

Neighbours gathered outside the white clapboard doors and trim bushes surrounding the house told AP Television News that Hashem, a Shiite engineer from Karbala, had been the director-general of the Baghdad municipality office until he retired about four months ago.

The slaughter occurred in Talbiyah, a middle-class neighbourhood on the fringes of Sadr City.

Gunmen ambushed a minibus carrying five female university employees to work on Sunday in southeastern Baghdad, seizing the driver.