Gunmen raided a jewelry shop on Saturday morning in western Iraq, killing four people before fleeing with a large amount of gold, officials said.
The brazen robbery is the latest in a string of violent attacks on lucrative targets such as banks, jewelry stores and money exchange houses that have plagued Iraq. Police speculate that insurgents seeking to replenish their funds may be behind the attacks.
Police and hospital officials said six attackers used handguns fitted with silencers during the heist in Fallujah, 65km west of Baghdad.
The victims were believed to have been the owners of the shop, police said.
All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
Street crime appears to be soaring in Iraq as sectarian fighting wanes and the US military prepares to withdraw its forces by the end of next year. Criminals and insurgents are exploiting security gaps as Iraqi politicians bicker over the formation of a new government more than three months after national elections.
None of Iraq’s main political groups won a clear majority in the March 7 vote and parliament has met only once since then. Parliament is scheduled to meet next on July 14.
Iraqi security forces have blamed these kinds of bold robberies on al-Qaeda-linked insurgents intent on filling their coffers for future attacks.
An officer with Anbar police said al-Qaeda could be behind Saturday’s attack, because “since we know that the robbery was accompanied by killings which is a trademark” of the group.
“We have been taking strict measures to prevent al-Qaeda from regrouping or attacking people, but breaches happen,” Brigadier General Mahmoud al-Issawi said, adding the police officer responsible for the neighborhood where the robbery took place is under investigation.
Wisam Talib, a jeweler in Fallujah, said shop owners were summoned by police last week, advised to hire bodyguards and told to keep weapons in their shops.
Also on Saturday, a policeman was killed and five others were wounded when a bomb detonated near a patrol in Mosul, officials said.
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