ISIS militants wielding AK-47s slaughter 14 Real Madrid fans at supporters meeting in Iraq ‘because they think football is anti-Muslim’
WARNING GRAPHIC CONTENT
- At least 14 people are dead after a group of ISIS militants armed with machine guns attacked the headquarters of a Real Madrid supporters club
- Men wielding AK-47s stormed the cafe and opened fire on the football fans
- At least 14 people are dead and a further 20 injured following the massacre
- President of club said: ‘They don’t like football, they think it’s anti Muslim’
- ISIS have slaughtered at least 14 Real Madrid fans at a supporters club in northern Iraq.
Three gunmen opened fire with machine guns around midnight at the cafe in the predominately Shi’ite Muslim town of Balad.
Horrific pictures from the scene show the floor covered in broken glass and soaked in blood in the cafe where up to 50 Real fans had gathered to watch old recordings of the club’s matches.
Posters of the club’s players and coach Zinedine Zidane can be seen hanging on the walls.
President of the Madrid supporters club, Ziad Subhan, said: ‘A group of Islamic terrorists, from ISIS, came into the café, armed with AK-47s, shooting at random at everyone who was inside’.
When asked about the motive for the attack, the president said: ‘They don’t like football, they think it’s anti-Muslim. They just carry out attacks like this. This is a terrible tragedy’.
Blood stains are seen on the floor of the Real Madrid supporters cafe, where a picture of coach Zinedine Zidane can be seen hanging on the wall (left)
People gather at the cafe following the slaughter by ISIS – the floor is visibly soaked with blood
Members of the supporters club met to watch old footage of Real Madrid football matches at the cafe
The scorched body of a suspected assailant (pictured) hanging upside down from a pole outside the cafe
At least 14 people are dead and a further 20 injured.
The assailants fled and hours later one of them set off hisexplosive vest at a nearby vegetable market after police andShi’ite militia members cornered him in a disused building andexchanged gunfire, security sources said.
Four were killed and two were critically wounded, medical sources said.
ISIS said in a statement that three suicide attackers had detonated their explosives, though security sources said they had only identified one of the gunmen.
A Reuters witness saw the scorched body of a suspected assailant hanging upside down from a pole outside the cafe on Friday morning.
Residents said they had seized the man from a nearby house where he had fled after the massacre. They said they had burned him alive when he confessed. An intelligence official confirmed this account.
Gruesome scenes show broken glass and blood stains on the ground following the horrific incident
Blood stains are left by a pole outside the cafe following the slaughter that left 14 football fans dead
ISIS nearly overran Balad, 80 km (50 miles) northof Baghdad, in 2014 and maintains a frontline around 40 km away.
Friday’s attackers had passed three police checkpointsbefore reaching their target, police sources said.
Security forces were deployed throughout the town, fearful of further attacks
The attack took place in Balad, about 50 miles north of Baghdad at a Real Madrid supporters club
It comes as at least 93 people were killed in three car bomb attacks in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad yesterday.
The deadliest killed 64 people and wounded 87 in a market in the mainly Shia Muslim area of Sadr City.
Police and witnesses said the explosives were hidden under fruit and vegetables loaded on a pick-up trick.
Later two suicide bombers targeted police checkpoints in the northern district of Kadhimiya and in Jamia, in the west, leaving 29 dead.
ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks in what was the worst day of violence in Baghdad so far this year.
The Sunni jihadist group, which controls large swathes of northern and western Iraq, has frequently targeted Shia, whom it considers apostates.
While ISIS has suffered a number of territorial defeats in the past year, the militants are still capable of launching significant attacks across the country, and have recently stepped-up assaults inside Baghdad, something officials say is an attempt to distract from their recent battlefield defeats.
