Iraqi council votes to demolish homes of convicted militants

Civilians clean the scene of a suicide bombing at the northern neighborhood of Shula, Baghdad, Iraq, Wednesday, July 27, 2016. A suicide bomber targeted a police checkpoint in a Shiite neighborhood in Baghdad on Wednesday, killing several people. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim) (The Associated Press)

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Civilians gather at the scene of a suicide bombing at the northern neighborhood of Shula, Baghdad, Iraq, Wednesday, July 27, 2016. A suicide bomber targeted a police checkpoint in a Shiite neighborhood in Baghdad on Wednesday, killing at least six people. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim) (The Associated Press)

Civilians gather at the scene of a suicide bombing at the northern neighborhood of Shula, Baghdad, Iraq, Wednesday, July 27, 2016. A suicide bomber targeted a police checkpoint in a Shiite neighborhood in Baghdad on Wednesday, killing at several people. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim) (The Associated Press)

BAGHDAD – An Iraqi provincial council has approved a decision that would allow local authorities to demolish homes of convicted militants and banish their families from the province.

Hassan Fadaam, a Babil Provincial Council member, says the decision will only apply to convicted militants who have exhausted all possibilities of appealing their convictions.

Faddam says a court order also must precede the demolishing of a house. He did not say where a family of an offender would go to, once banished from the province.

The decision, approved Tuesday in the Babil provincial capital of Hillah, is a first in Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

Earlier, some pro-government Sunni tribes have demolished houses of those they accused of cooperating with the Islamic State group after its 2014 blitz.