Iraqi security forces expanded its campaign for gun control, with raids and inspections reaching out from Baghdad and Basra to other governorates.
Basra Operations Command units managed on Tuesday to arrest 40 law fugitives and seize 16 Kalashnikov rifles and a sniper shooter.
Similar arrests and seizures were made in Maysan governorate.
In Khanaqin city in Iraq's Diyala Governorate, security taskforces hunted down ISIS remnants.
Security sweeps for ISIS remnants also took place in Kirkuk governorate, where three ISIS hideouts were raided, and 50 rockets and 300 projectiles were seized.
In other news, Baghdadis were shocked over the murder of a whole family of five by a handgun. One of the five victims was a 7-year-old boy.
One of the relatives told Asharq Al-Awsat that the family’s eldest son had survived the shooting because he wasn’t even at the house at the time of the attack.
The perpetrator was identified as the 20-year-old nephew of the murdered father.
The Ministry of Interior said in a statement that a joint force of the Federal Police and the Intelligence Agency was able to arrest a suspect who killed a family of five, a father, a mother, and 3 children in the Al-Amin area in Baghdad.
The statement indicated that the perpetrator confessed during the preliminary investigations that he had committed the crime and that he suffered from mental illness.
Duly legal measures were taken against him, the ministry reported.
The perpetrator had attempted to mislead the investigation by smearing Saraya al-Salam (or the Peace Regiments) slogans over the family’s house walls.
"This is the fate of those who transgress the Al-Sadr family," he wrote alongside other slogans. Saraya al-Salam is an armed faction tied to the Sadrist Movement in Iraq.
Relatives of the family and the Ministry of Interior denied any relation between the Sadrist Movement or Saraya al-Salam and the family.
One of the relatives confirmed that the father had never encountered any problems with the Sadrist Movement or with other factions and political parties.
