Posted on 04/06/2008 4:42:53 AM PDT by maquiladora
MOSUL, Iraq (AFP) — Gunmen on Sunday kidnapped 42 university students near Iraq's northern city of Mosul, while a US air strike in eastern Baghdad killed nine people, officials said.
Iraq's political leaders, meanwhile, urged that militias throughout the country be disbanded in a move seen as pressuring radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr to rein in his fighters ahead of provincial elections in October.
Local army commander Brigadier General Khalid Abdul Sattar said the gunmen ambushed two buses which were ferrying students to Mosul from their homes in Shurkat, 70 kilometres (40 miles) south of Iraq's main northern city.
"Unidentified gunmen kidnapped 42 students of Mosul University. They were ambushed and kidnapped in an area called Jorum on a highway near Mosul," said Sattar, spokesman for Mosul's security plan.
"One of the two buses managed to escape although the gunmen fired at it and wounded three students. The kidnappers later fled after taking control of the other bus carrying 42 students," he told AFP.
Iraqi and US troops are engaged in a major offensive against Al-Qaeda in Iraq's main northern city, which according to US military commanders is the jihadists' last urban stronghold in Iraq.
The American military, meanwhile, said a US air strike in Baghdad's Shiite bastion of Sadr City killed at least nine people Sunday.
The air strike killed "nine criminals in Sadr City at around 8:00 am (0500 GMT)," the military said without providing further details.
Iraqi security officials had earlier said clashes erupted between Shiite fighters and US forces in Sadr City, Baghdad bastion of the powerful Mahdi Army militia of radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
The clashes come days before a protest on April 9 in Sadr City called by the cleric against the presence of US forces in Iraq, coinciding with the fifth anniversary of the toppling of dictator Saddam Hussein's regime.
Sadr's office says it expects at least one million people to turn out for the protest.
The Mahdi Army fighters have since March 25 being battling Iraqi and US forces in Sadr City and in the southern city of Basra after Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki ordered a crackdown on "lawless" Shiite militiamen.
The fighting, which raged until Sunday last week when Sadr called his fighters off the streets, killed more than 700 people. Since Sadr's order, clashes have been sporadic and focused mainly in Sadr City.
US commanders have previously said their forces are targeting "criminals" firing mortars and rockets from Sadr City into Baghdad's fortified Green Zone, seat of the Iraqi government and the US embassy.
On the political front, members of the top-level Political Council of National Security met at the office of President Jalal Talabani on Saturday and framed a 15-point statement aimed at disarming the country's many militia groups, most of them aligned to various political parties.
The council comprises the president, the prime minister and the heads of the various political blocs.
"The militias should be integrated into civilian activities as a condition for participating in the political process and the next elections," a statement issued by Talabani's office said.
Sadr boasts Iraq's most powerful militia with an estimated 60,000 fighters.
Washington has campaigned for the dismantling of the militias and the Pentagon in 2006 had said the Mahdi Army was a bigger threat to the stability of Iraq than Al-Qaeda.
Observers say that with the elections to be held on October 1 in Iraq's 18 provinces, Maliki was under pressure to rein in the militias, especially in Basra where rival Shiite factions are engaged in an intense turf war.
Powerful Shiite group the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council, which commands a strong Badr Brigade militia, the Sadr group and the smaller Fadhila Party are engaged in a three-way power struggle to control the oil rich Shiite city of some 1.6 million people.
If you can call Islam a religion then.....
Islam = default religon for savages
I hope these harmless students don’t get killed
Muhammad himself advocated hostage taking. Just about all of the loathsome cowardly way todays Muslims fight was done by Muhammad. Who all Muslims are ordained to emulate. Emulate his savage life but these liars brainwash themselves into thinking Mo was peaceful and the perfect man. Islam calls MO the perfect man
THE IRAQI ARMY ROCKS!!! They were trained by the best Army in the world, what else to expect!?
Ping
Now, that’s news!
Time to seriously thin out the opposition, IMO...
Load up the A-10s and Apaches -- massed target of opportunity coming up!
“kidnapped 42 university students”
University students are unarmed and vulnerable the world over.
good!
They have been released at 12h19 GMT
"We freed the students who were kidnapped this morning south of Mosul," said Brigadier General Khalid Abdul Sattar, spokesman for Mosul's security plan.
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