ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - A family of three were killed on Wednesday by suspected gunmen in the town of Baiji, Salahaddin province, a local official confirmed to The New Region.

“Preliminary investigations show that the incident is not terror-related,” Saad Obayd, head of the security and defense committee at the Salahaddin Provincial Council, told The New Region, while refusing to delve further into details “due to the confidentiality of the ongoing investigation."

The perpetrators, whose exact number is unknown as of the time of writing this report, have remained at large.

“The perpetrators will be arrested and handed over to the judiciary,” Obayd said, adding that the suspected gunmen had “tied the victims with ropes before shooting them.

“They have burned the house. This indicates criminal motives for revenge."

Earlier in the day, a security source attributed the crime to “inheritance problems” between the murders and the murdered.

Salahaddin is a predominantly Sunni region. Along with several other Sunni areas, they fell to the Islamic State (ISIS) when the group controlled large swathes of territory in Iraq and neighboring Syria.

Today’s incident comes just one week after another similar crime when unknown gunmen in military uniforms killed a family of five, including three children, and burned their house down in a village north of Samarra, according to a statement from the Iraqi interior ministry.

Domestic violence is a serious issue in Iraq, despite the constitution categorically rejecting “all forms of violence and abuse in the family”.

Gun ownership is the biggest challenge gripping Iraq and the Kurdistan Region since the toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003, despite a myriad of efforts from both governments to try and limit the number of illegal guns in the country.