Gunmen kill five construction workers in north Iraq

Gunmen stormed a house in Iraq's Samarra City in Salahudin province, 120 km north of Baghdad, early on Monday and shot dead five construction workers, a provincial police source said.

The Iraqi security forces arrived in the morning at the house in al-Khadraa district in central Samarra to collect the bodies, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity, adding an investigation has been launched.

The victims were villagers near Samarra who came to the city to make a living for their families and were renting the house to live in, the source said.

Sporadic attacks are still common in Iraq as part of recent deterioration in security, shaping a setback to the efforts of the Iraqi government to restore normalcy in the country days after the U.S. military announced withdrawal of its combat troops from the war-torn country.

Source: Xinhua