Mass kidnapping in Baghdad sparks police chief arrests
By Shirley Blair,WNS Baghdad Correspondent
BAGHDAD - Armed men in military-style uniforms have kidnapped around 100 people from a ministry in the Iraqi capital, prompting the authorities to arrest five police commanders. Interior ministry spokesman Major General Abdel Karim Khalaf told AFP the five men "should be held responsible" for the mass kidnappings, while state television said a special committee has been set up to find the kidnap victims.
The brazen kidnapping in broad daylight at the higher education ministry's scientific research department was one of the largest such operations in violence-plagued Baghdad. "A large force arrived with many vehicles with tinted windows claiming to be police commandos and they clashed with the guards and then entered the building and snatched all the employees and some visitors," said Higher Education Minister Abed Dhiab al-Ujaili. The ministry, which is controlled by the Sunni Arab parliamentary bloc, the National Concord Front, is located in the middle-class, and comparatively safe, district of Karrada.
Three of those kidnapped were later released unharmed behind a Baghdad hospital, a medic told AFP. "A pickup truck dropped them off behind the hospital," said the witness who works at Al-Kindi hospital in central Baghdad. "They were blindfolded with tape and were very confused and had no money." Ujaili said university professors would stop teaching after what he condemned as a terrorist act aimed at bringing higher education in Iraq to its knees.
But Basil al-Khateeb, a ministry spokesman, said the decision was not implemented following assurances from the interior ministry that police would deploy around universities. "They are targeting higher education to empty it," the minister said, in a city where the killing and kidnapping of academics and professionals is common. Such operations have in the past been carried out by militias aided by elements of the security forces, highlighting a key factor of instability in the capital.
posted by wnsworld @ 9:02 AM
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