Jabbar Saleh al-Jibouri, a Sunni cleric, was killed before dawn in a village in Diyala province."The gunmen entered the house, stabbed him, cut his head off and set him alight," a police spokesman told Reuters. "Most probably the attack was based on terrorist motives because it happened in such a horrible way."
An unnamed source said Jibouri, who was also a medic, used to treat members of the government-backed Sahwa militia.
Jibouri had recently returned to his old neighborhood after being displaced by al Qaeda in 2007. He was the relative of a senior member of the Iraqi Islamic Party.