|
Iraqi PM plays down kidnap as "militia dispute"
"Just excitable boyz, really".By Claudia Parsons BAGHDAD (Rooters) - Iraq's prime minister played down a mass kidnap of civil servants in which many may still be missing on Wednesday and which has put further strain on his government to disband militias involved in sectarian violence. A government spokesman said most of the dozens of hostages seized at a Higher Education Ministry building in central Baghdad on Tuesday had been freed. But amid conflicting reports of how many were seized in the first place, employees' families said at least several of their relatives were still missing. "What happened was not terrorism, rather it was due to dispute and conflict between militias from one side or another," Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said in televised remarks. Under pressure from Washington to disband such groups, Maliki has insisted the main threat to Iraq's security comes from minority Sunni Arab insurgents and says he will deal with militias loyal to his Shi'ite Islamist allies in his own time. Senior police officers were detained and quizzed over the raid, the latest such kidnap carried out by gunmen in police uniform in which complicity is suspected between the security forces and sectarian Shi'ite militia groups. In a speech at Baghdad University, apparently timed to allay academics' fears for their security, Maliki said universities would remain open and should be free of sectarian influence. The White House, determined to build up Iraq's security forces so it can hand over responsibility for security, will be looking for an explanation of what happened as it reviews strategy under domestic pressure to bring U.S. troops home. MOST RELEASED An official at the prime minister's media office said around 40 hostages had been in the hands of the kidnappers by Tuesday evening and "most of them have been released". The government spokesman had said up to about 70 had been abducted in all. However a spokesman for the Higher Education Ministry reiterated on Wednesday at least 100 men were seized. Spokesman Basil al-Khatib said around 40 had been freed, including 20 released within hours of the kidnap. "They beat us and insulted us and after that they freed us," he quoted the assistant manager of the building, Yahya Alwan, as saying after he was released on Tuesday afternoon. Al Furat, a Shi'ite-controlled TV station, said 25 hostages were still missing. Tareq Hassan said he had not heard from his brother Jabar since he was seized from his office. He said other relatives were in the same position: "I don't know if he's alive or dead." Amid suspicions of police complicity in the latest and biggest mass kidnapping, the interior minister hauled in police chiefs on Tuesday to explain how dozens of gunmen in police uniforms swept into the ministry annex and rounded up hostages. An Interior Ministry spokesman said the head of the Karrada section of the police and four other officers had been arrested. A car bomb on Wednesday killed nine people and wounded 33 at a fuel station near Iraq's Interior Ministry in central Baghdad, police and Interior Ministry sources said. A U.S. soldier and three marines were killed in western Iraq on Tuesday. Posted by: anonymous5089 2006-11-15 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=172070 |