Rampaging jihadists captured and killed the Iraqi judge who sentenced Saddam Hussein to death, it was reported Sunday.
Judge Raouf Abdel-Rahman, who presided over the dictator’s trial in 2006, was seized as he left Baghdad and summarily executed, the Macedonian International News Agency reported, citing Egyptian newspaper Al-Mesyroon and a Jordanian parliamentarian’s Facebook page.
The reported slaying would be a shocking development in the Sunni terror campaign sweeping across Iraq.
The al Qaeda breakaway group Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has seized huge swaths in the north and west, while surging closer to Baghdad.
On Sunday, the militants captured the key western cities Rawa, Ana and Rutba, the government said Sunday. Twenty-one leaders in those cities were killed in battles, police and doctors said.
The border towns could open key supply routes for weapons-sharing militants on both sides of the Syrian-Iraqi border.
Iraqi military spokesman Maj. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi said government forces had ceded those towns to allow themselves to regroup.
Despite calls to defend Baghdad, the majority-Shiite capital, many residents are staying indoors, fearing attacks.
“Our politicians have so far succeeded in one thing: They have created an atmosphere of distrust between the city’s Shiites and Sunnis,” said Yasser Farouq, 45, a retail operator in Baghdad’s Sunni neighborhood of Adhamiyah.
“Weapons are everywhere in the city. That tells me that instability is here, and disaster is on the way.”
The United States and Iran share both want ISIS in check. But Iran’s supreme leader declared Sunday that his state won’t be joining forces with America in fighting ISIS.
“We don’t support any foreign interference in Iraq, and we’re strongly opposed to US interference there,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said.
Although Iran has vowed to help defend Baghdad, Khamenei said Iraq must deal with the crisis without US involvement.
“The United States is dissatisfied with the result of elections in Iraq, and they want to deprive the Iraqi people of their achievement of a democratic system, which they achieved without US interference,” he said.