DOHUK, Iraq (AP) — The annual parade by Assyrian Christians in the Iraqi city of Dohuk to mark their new year was marred Tuesday when an axe-wielding man attacked the procession and wounded three people, witnesses and local officials said.
The parade, held every year on April 1, drew thousands of Assyrians from Iraq and across the diaspora, who marched through Dohuk in northern Iraq waving Assyrian flags and wearing colorful traditional clothes.
Witnesses said the attacker, who has not been officially identified, ran toward the crowd shouting Islamic slogans.
He struck three people with the axe before being stopped by participants and security forces. Videos circulated online showed him pinned to the ground, repeatedly shouting, “Islamic State, the Islamic State remains.”
A 17-year-old boy and a 75-year-old woman suffered skull fractures. A member of the local security forces, who was operating a surveillance drone, was also wounded. All three were hospitalized, local security officials said.
At the hospital where her 17-year-old son Fardi was being treated after suffering a skull injury, Athraa Abdullah told The Associated Press that her son had come with his friends in buses. He was sending photos from the celebrations shortly before his friends called to say he had been attacked, she said.
Abdullah, whose fa …