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Shia Muslims travelling to holy shrine in Syria shot by gang at fake security checkpoint in western province Gunmen killed 22 Shia pilgrims in an ambush in Iraq’s western province of Anbar on Monday, a police official said. They were travelling from Karbala, amongst the holiest of Shia cities, on a trip north to another holy shrine in neighbouring Syria. The bodies were discovered late on Monday night, hours after the gang of gunmen stopped the bus at a fake security checkpoint and told all the women to get off, according to one official who interviewed a survivor. The gunmen drove the bus a few miles off the main highway in the Sunni-dominated Anbar province. The pilgrims were ordered off the bus and shot one by one. “There was a big bus and a mini bus containing 30 people, including 22 men and eight women,” Major General Hadi Razij, head of Anbar police, told Reuters. “They took the men and they left the women. They killed the 22 men.” Security officials and a political leader from Karbala confirmed the shooting details. All spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorised to release information. While violence has dropped in Iraq from the height of sectarian fighting in 2006-07, killings and bombings remain a daily occurrence more than eight years after the 2003 US-led invasion. The sprawling desert province of Anbar was the heartland of a Sunni Islamist insurgency after the invasion, and its main cities, Ramadi and Falluja, saw some of the fiercest fighting of the war. In April 2007, some 110 people were killed and hundreds injured in bombing attacks on holy sites in Karbala, considered the second most important city for Shia Muslims. Iraq Middle East Global terrorism guardian.co.uk