Two women and two children have been killed in an attack on a police officer's house in northern Mosul, the Iraqi police in Ninawa province said Thursday (April 25th).

"Unknown gunmen attacked a house owned by a police officer in al-Masaref neighbourhood, northern Mosul, and killed his mother, wife, and two of his children using pistols fitted with silencers," Ninawa police spokesman Col. Khalid al-Hamdani told Al-Shorfa.

The gunmen fled after carrying out their crime, he said.

Police have opened an investigation into the attack to identify the perpetrators, he said, and are receiving help from a number of area residents.