Five teachers shot dead in Iraq

Five Iraqi teachers were abducted in front of their pupils and executed at a primary school south of Baghdad today.

The shooting happened as teachers and students were leaving the building at the end of the school day in Muelha, a village near the town of Iskandariyah. Contrary to earlier reports that children had been forced to watch the murders, no-one else was in the classroom at the time of the shooting, said police Captain Muthana Khaled.

The five male teachers were kidnapped as they were leaving the school in a minibus, along with their driver, Khalied said. All six men were then taken back into the classroom, lined up against a wall and shot to death by the gunmen, he said.

Muelha, about 50 km (30 miles) south of Baghdad, is located in a predominantly Sunni area of Iraq, but the identities of the people killed were not immediately known, The Times reports.