BAGHDAD, Iraq: Murder of innocent people, death threats, beheadings, kidnappings, mutilation of dead bodies and every crime to its extent continued in Iraq without a little humanity left in the hearts of terrorists as eight members of a family, including a 2-year-old, were shot to death in their sleep early Sunday.

Residents of the eastern Baghdad neighborhood of Baladiyat discovered the bodies early Sunday, said Col. Ahmed al-Alawi, the director of al-Rashad police station. The eight — seven siblings and their mother — died of gunshot wounds, he said. Six of the dead were aged between 2 and 14 years. One boy was injured.

The father, Hussein At-Tarash, was not home at the time of the killings.

In south of Baghdad, pamphlets slipped under doors of 22 Momineen families have warned them to flee the area or they will face decapitation.

The pamphlets were signed by the "Mujahedeen Brigades" and were distributed in the religiously mixed town of Youssifiyah, 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of Baghdad.

"This is a final warning," said the statement, obtained by The Associated Press. "After investigations, it has been proven that you have allied yourselves with the occupiers through supplying them with information regarding the work of the resistance groups in this area and its surroundings."

"The Mujahedeen Brigades have decided...to issue a warning that states that you must be deported outside of this area and outside of Baghdad," the document said.

"If you don't heed this warning and if you ignore it and don't leave the area, then the resistance will chop off your heads wherever you are and without hesitation."
It threatened to "shell your houses" one week from now.

The authenticity of the statement, distributed on Friday, could not be verified.
Residents in Youssifiyah said three of the families have already left.

Youssifiyah lies in area known as the "triangle of death," because of widespread attacks against believers, Westerners and members of the Iraqi security services.

Salwa Jabr Saihoud wanted to grant her father's dying wish that she accompany his body on its journey to burial in Holy Najaf. It mattered little to her that the road to the holy city is one of the most dangerous in Iraq.

The journey ended in horror.

Two of her brothers, three other close relatives and a family friend were kidnapped en route to Najaf. Their bodies were later found with gunshot wounds. Her father's body, in a rickety wooden coffin, was tossed into a river.

What is unusual about the Saihoud family's case is the irreverence for the dead. Arab tradition still heeds ancient codes prescribing respect for the dead and for a family's grief.

The 12-member party had set off on the 100-mile journey to Najaf in a minibus with Saihoud's coffin strapped to the roof. Twenty miles south of Baghdad, a dark blue Opel sedan blocked the road.

Gunmen yelled at Salwa Saihoud, the driver and four elderly passengers to get out. "Some of them were screaming, 'Shoot them! Shoot them now!" she recalled.

The seven gunmen hurried into the minibus and drove off, taking with them the six men. They included the late Saihoud's two sons Saad, 30 and father of two, and Adel, a 37-year-old who could not hear or speak and had two children.

It was the last time the family saw them alive.

A day later, police fished the coffin of 70-year-old Saihoud from the Latifiyah River. The next day, the six men were found with gunshot wounds to the head and neck. Some of the bodies were mutilated.

The Saihouds were particularly distressed about the mutilation of the bodies, especially that of 30-year-old father of four Walid Khayoun. His right arm, bearing a tattoo of Imam Ali (AS)'s sword, was cut off.

"By God, I hate them," an angry Salwa Saihoud, 40, said about terrorists.

Then forty days after the death of her father, 70 of the Saihouds boarded four minibuses and braved the road to Najaf to visit the grave as prescribed by tradition.

“We were all armed including the women,” said Raad Saihoud, on of the late Saihoud’s three surviving sons. “And we were looking for martyrdom.”