[NRTtv] SULAIMANI — Unidentified gunman opened fire at a house belonging to an emergency and defense police officer in Sulaimani’s Baranan neighborhood on Wednesday evening (February 3), before then beating him and members of his family.The police officer, Sheikhal Ibrahim, told NRT that earlier in the evening a Cadillac with tinted-windows and an Erbil license plate cut him off on the road, sparking an argument between him and the other driver.
After Ibrahim returned home, the driver with whom he had argued arrived with several other men, who opened fire on his home. No one was hurt by the gunfire, but the gunmen proceeded to beat Ibrahim and members of his family who were present at the time.
Ibrahim said that he does not know who the armed men were and that he has no problems with anyone.
He called on Patriotic Union of Kurdistan co-Presidents Lahur Sheikh Jangi and Bafel Talabani to intervene to resolve the issue.
“Indeed, it is a very weird and ugly phenomenon,” he told NRT.
“If anybody has a problem with me, let’s take it to the courts, file a suit against me, but don’t get off and open fire at me like that,” he added.
Gun violence is on the rise in the Kurdistan Region.
On January 15, four men shot up three restaurants in Erbil city after they were told that they no longer had any sarupe (pacha) left for service. Five days after that, a gunman shot seven bullets at a barbershop in Koya district.
In February 2019, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Interior Ministry gave gun owners six months to register their unregistered or illegal small firearms and give up heavy and medium weapons, but many residents did not.