Iraq Police Murder Child -- THIS is the regime we put in place?

The Belfast Telegraph is reporting today that Ahmed Khalil, a 14-year old Iraqi boy, was dragged from his Bagdad home and shot at point-blank range by uniformed Iraqi police.

The crime for which he was summarily executed? According to the Telegraph's Report, this young boy was murdered by Iraqi police because of allegations that he engaged in paid homosexual encounters:

Ali Hili, the co-ordinator of a group of exiled Iraqi gay men who monitor homophobic attacks inside Iraq, said the fatwa had instigated a "witch-hunt of lesbian and gay Iraqis, including violent beatings, kidnappings and assassinations".

"Young Ahmed was a victim of poverty," he said. "He was summarily executed, apparently by fundamentalist elements in the Iraqi police."

Neighbours in al-Dura district say Ahmed's father was arrested and interrogated two days before his son's murder by police who demanded to know about Ahmed's sexual activities. It is believed Ahmed slept with men for money to support his poverty-stricken family, who have fled the area fearing further reprisals.

The killing of Ahmed is one of a series of alleged homophobic murders. There is mounting evidence that fundamentalists have infiltrated government security forces to commit homophobic murders while wearing police uniforms.

The Telegraph and The Independent appear to be the only MSM outlet which has covered this story using it's own sources, and they are both foreign. Gay and Lesbian advocacy groups and websites have widely reported this event.

The BBC recently reported that the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has issued fatwa against homosexuals, authorizing their summary execution. According to the BBC report, al-Sistani's website says "Those who commit sodomy must be killed in the harshest way" in the Arabic version of the site, but not in the English version.

Advocacy websites have alleged that the full translation of the Arabic version of the statement is as follows:

Q5: What is the judgment for sodomy and lesbianism?

A5: Forbidden. Punished, in fact, killed. The people involved should be killed in the worst, most severe way of killing.

What is very troubling about researching this story is that there appears to have been a widespread build-up of violence against gays and lesbians in Iraq since last fall. Many advocacy blogs, media, and websites have reported that the Grand Ayatollah's teaching has been taken to heart. And now it is clear that the Iraqi police -- the very forces we are trianing -- are involved in summary execution. But I have yet to locate any coverage of this in any MSM -- NBC, NYTimes, and the like.

Choosing not to cover these events -- turning a blind eye to the horrible killing of a child, driven to prostitution to help feed his family and abused by the adult men in the community, is nothing less than complicity in the Administrations continuing attempts to obscure just how bandly they have bungled, on every possible level, the entire Iraq invasion and occupation.

h/t to the Pittsburgh Lesbian Correspondents for the lead