Last updated at 09:13 24 November 2007

An Iraqi couple were beheaded in front of their children by their cousins because the man wore Western-style trousers.

Three suspected al Qaeda militants, including two sisters, beheaded their uncle and his wife, forcing the couple's children to watch, according to Iraqi police.

The killing came because the school guard Youssef al-Hayali was considered an infidel because he did not pray and wore western-style trousers.

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The militants, later arrested in Diyala province northwest of Baghdad, killed Hayali and his wife Zeinab Kamel at the all-boys school in Jalawlah.

Sunni Arab communities across Iraq have been turning against al Qaeda because of its indiscriminate killings and strict interpretation of Islam, which includes a ban on smoking in public and forcing schoolgirls to wear veils.

Sunni Arab tribal sheikhs have been organising their young men into neighbourhood police units to drive out al Qaeda, a practice which U.S. and Iraqi officials say has helped bring down violence levels across Iraq.

The U.S. military said earlier in November that it was sending 3,000 soldiers home from the province but added that the overall number of forces in the province would not decrease.

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The United States poured an extra 30,000 troops into Iraq from mid-February in a bid to stop the country from sliding into civil war.

U.S. and Iraqi officials say the troop "surge" and more efficient Iraqi security forces have also helped bring about sharp falls in U.S. military and Iraqi civilian casualties in the past two months.