Posted on 11/14/2006 1:15:41 AM PST by bd476
2 minutes agoDozens snatched in mass kidnap at Iraq ministry
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Gunmen in Iraqi police uniforms rounded up dozens of men at a government building in central Baghdad on Tuesday and drove off, in what may be the biggest mass kidnapping seen in a city becoming used to such violence.
A source at the Interior Ministry said 20 employees of the Higher Education Ministry were seized. But a spokeswoman for the department itself said dozens of men -- "100 or maybe 150" -- had been rounded up, including many visitors to the building.
Women were separated from the men and locked in a room after having their mobile phones confiscated by the gunmen, who drove up to the ministry's Research Directorate in the commercial, religiously mixed district of Karrada, in government vehicles.
"All Interior Ministry forces are on alert, searching for this group. We don't know if it's terrorists, militias or even government forces," Interior Ministry spokesman Brigadier Abdul Kareem Khalaf said, declining to say how many people were missing.
Numerous mass kidnappings have been blamed on sectarian militias operating either within the security forces or with the help of police in providing equipment.
The once dominant Sunni minority and U.S. officials have focused particular suspicion on militias from the now dominant Shi'ite Muslim parties, who control the Interior Ministry.
The Higher Education Ministry is headed by a member of the main Sunni Arab political bloc. Most ministries have become fiefdoms of particular parties.
Not far from the ministry building attacked on Tuesday, about 30 sports officials and athletes, including the head of Iraq's national Olympic Committee, were seized during a meeting in July by gunmen in uniform. Some were later freed but many, including the Olympics chief, have never been heard of again.
Last month, the 26-strong workforce of a Baghdad meat-processing factory were also seized in similar circumstances.
Some kidnap victims are ransomed but many end up among the dozens of corpses, found bound and tortured, on the streets of Baghdad every day. On Monday alone, 46 were found and the morgue says it is taking in about 50 unclaimed bodies a day.
After the incident involving the meat factory workers, the government removed a number of senior police officers who had responsibility for the area and took an entire brigade of police out of service for vetting and re-training.
Washington, under mounting domestic political pressure to start pulling its 150,000 troops out of Iraq, has placed a heavy emphasis on recruiting and training Iraqi security forces, which now number more than 300,000.
But their competence and sectarian loyalties remain a matter of grave concern as the government struggles to slow a slide toward all-out civil war.
Are you saying we should stay the course in Iraq?
IMO better to buy your daughters guns, ammo, and give them firearms training.
I think we'll finally have some proof that the reason for Rummy's depature was his unwillingness to implement the recommendations of the Baker Commision.
Excellent point.
What prevented us from stopping the steady flow of terrorists into Iraq?
Sad but true and I admit to having similar fears. I pray that our worst fears never come to fruition.
BBC has updated the story at 1017 GMT:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6146152.stm
"They gathered them all in the pick-ups. At the same time, I saw two police patrols watching, doing nothing," he said.
That one sentence sums up this entire disaster.
Oil funds mosque-building in the US and Europe—principally by Saudi Arabia. Do we want to fuel (literally, with our gas-tank-dollars) missile-buying and nuke-building Middle East regimes too? Or those like Kuwait and Dubai, who are nominally friendly to the US? We've expended much treasure and too much blood to stop now. Who will take the millions of freedom-loving political refugees from Iraq?
Hmmmnnnh?
"We've expended much treasure and too much blood to stop now."
I'm sort of reminded of what some famous person said about the definition of insanity (or some other condition): Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.
My apology to whoever said it better.
Not to worry ... it's just the Republicans that were voted out a week ago.
Having finally gotten their own message of 1994, but incapable of mounting any meaningful assault here ... they secretly flew to Baghdad and practiced abolishing the NEA.
OK .. if we can't laugh at ourselves ... I'm going to get banned for what I start to say about us.
That's what I'm sitting here thinking.
I can't imagine not having a firearm on me at all times, if I were there. Preferably more than one.
I am surprised Reuters wasn't invited to film it happen
FTR, I was being sarcastic. Or, at least trying to be.
Ali al-Adib, a Shiite lawmaker, said there was little question Tuesday's incident was a mass kidnapping and demanded that U.S. troops be held responsible for the security lapse.
"The detention of 150 people from a government institution without informing the higher education minister ... means this is an abduction operation," al-Adib said.
I hope that was sarcasm.
You see, it's getting to an almost impossible point here.
No civilization can survive with this sort of sectarian prejudice and violent behavior.
And it's damn near impossible to cull out the bad guys. They are sent from all around to infiltrate the police and security forces. Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria...they bribe these people to go in and set up these sorts of things, to set off a bomb and here, if there's any truth to the article, the Iraqi police force is giving out uniforms and equipment.
It's like trying to stop the levees from overflowing with only the help of a water bucket.
It sounds more and more like the U.S. has to take over that entire country with an iron fist or just get the hell out.
It can't go on like this. I might mention that every once in a while OUR soldiers get killed by a roadside bomb and this just gets old. If they can't get along between themselves how on earth are they going to carve out a viable and safe society?
Sometime after Tet of 68 it was obvious we were going to get out of Vietnam. It took until 72 and the loss of many more American soldiers until it happened. Whatever we do it shouldn't take four years to do it. If it does, we haven't learned anything.
almost
I mean, wy not?
That's how they spoke of us for the last 3 years or so....
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