Tikrit - Gunmen killed the sister-in-law and the niece of former Iraqi official Ali Hassan al-Majid, known to his victims as "Chemical Ali", in the Iraqi city of Tikrit on Thursday, sources said. Similar attacks, meanwhile, continued throughout the conflict-torn Iraq.
Unidentified gunmen stormed the house of al-Majid's brother Hashim
Hassan al-Majid in Qadessiya district in northern Tikrit and shot and killed his wife and daughter, an Iraqi police source said.
The attackers managed to escape and nothing was found to be missing from the house, indicating that the attack had not been an armed robbery, the source added.
Tirkit, a predominantly Sunni city, is the capital of Salah Eddin province, 175 km north of Baghdad. It is also tbe former hometown and burial place of ousted and executed former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
The al-Majid brothers were cousins of Saddam. Ali Hassan al-Majid was dubbed "Chemical Ali" for his involvement in the mass murder of Kurds in northern Iraq in the 1980s.
Saddam, al-Majid and five other aides were charged in relation to the so-called Anfal (spoils) campaign in northern Iraq in 1987-1988 in which thousands of Kurds were killed.
The campaign included the Halabja massacre of thousands of Kurds in a chemical gas attack in August 1988.
In another development in Iraq on Thursday, at least nine Iraqi soldiers were killed and 15 others wounded in a suicide bombing at an Iraqi military checkpoint in Khalis, according to Iraqi police sources.
Security sources said the bomber blew himself up at the checkpoint opposite an ice factory in Khalis in northern Baquba, 60 kilometres north-east of Baghdad.
Ambulances rushed to the scene as police and military forces sealed off the area.
Attacks have increased in the Baquba area since the Fardh al-Qanoun - law enforcement - security plan was launched February 14 by Iraqi forces backed by multinational troops in Baghdad and its neighbouring cities.
Residents of Baquba believe that the sectarian violence has been driven further north since the implementation of the plan.
Also Thursday, more than six Iraqis were killed and seven others wounded when an explosive charge went off in central Baghdad, witnesses said.
The charge detonated in a public market in Sayed Sultan Ali district in central Baghdad, where electrical devices and generators are sold, the witnesses added.
The blast caused damage to several market stalls.
