Killings of high-profile women in Iraq spark outrage

"The views towards the killing of these women is mixed," Alison Pargeter, a Middle East expert and senior research associate at the Royal United Services Institute in the UK, told DW. "While many Iraqis are dismayed and horrified at the attacks, others are not overly perturbed, with some believing that these women somehow deserved what they got for transgressing social norms," she said. Pargeter added that the Iraqi media are also trying to link some of the women to the sex industry in order to justify the killings.