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| Iraq |
| More on the Baghdad violence |
| 2006-03-30 |
| Gunmen attacked the offices of a construction company in western Baghdad on Wednesday, killing eight people, the third consecutive day a private business has been assaulted. Separately, police said they found the bodies of 17 men, who had been blindfolded, bound and shot, at two locations in the capital. In all, at least 41 people were reported killed in violence throughout the country. A spokesman for the Interior Ministry said a group of masked gunmen in civilian clothes came to the Al Ibtikar Construction Co. in western Baghdad's Dawoodi neighborhood at about noon. According to witness accounts, he said, guards at the company opened fire on the men, who responded with a furious barrage, killing eight of the company's employees, including three women. Five other employees were injured in the attack, according to the spokesman, who declined to be quoted by name. He said the manager was abducted by the attackers, who fled in two sedans and a pickup truck. The Associated Press, quoting unnamed police sources, said some of the attackers wore police uniforms and identified themselves as intelligence agents from the Interior Ministry. By this account, the assailants asked for the manager of the firm, and when told he was not there, lined up 14 employees and shot them, killing eight, the AP reported. The different versions of events could not be reconciled late Wednesday. The attack followed three assaults on businesses in the capital on Tuesday. Gunmen, many of them in military uniforms and wearing masks and helmets, kidnapped 24 people from two electronics stores and a currency exchange. They also reportedly fled with thousands of dollars. On Monday, gunmen in military uniforms and masks abducted 16 people from the Saeed Import and Export Co. in central Baghdad. The incidents were reminiscent of a March 8 attack on a Baghdad security company in which 50 people were abducted. Although the rash of kidnappings had the hallmarks of an extortion racket or abductions for ransom, police said they did not know the assailants' motives. Police say as many as 30 people a day are reported kidnapped in Iraq, although they believe that figure to be lower than the actual number of people abducted because many families prefer to pay for the release of their loved ones rather than contact police. The Interior Ministry spokesman said the attacks were straining resources because "the ministry cannot place police units at each and every shop or company." But he said the ministry was developing "a new security plan" for commercial establishments. He did not elaborate. Military uniforms are easy to purchase in the capital's markets. But there have been allegations for months that the Interior Ministry is harboring members of Shiite Muslim militias or units acting as Shiite death squads that attack Sunni mosques and kill Sunni Arabs execution-style. The number of such attacks has surged since the Feb. 22 bombing of a revered Shiite shrine in Samarra, north of Baghdad. In some analysts' view, the resulting cycle of sectarian revenge killings is pushing Iraq toward civil war. The government, which is controlled by Shiites, denies that the Interior Ministry is behind any of the killings. The epidemic of execution-like killings continued Wednesday with the discovery of 17 male bodies, 14 of them in one location and three in another. All of the victims appeared to be between the ages of 20 and 40. Many bore signs of torture, the Interior Ministry spokesman said, and all had been bound, blindfolded and shot. Seventeen bodies were found in a similar state on Tuesday. Interior Ministry forces conducting a raid Wednesday in Baghdad's mixed Shiite-Sunni neighborhood of Hai al-Amil fired on a Sunni mosque, injuring a guard and smashing windows and doors, according to a statement from the Muslim Scholars Association, an influential Sunni group. The group blamed the government and U.S. forces for the attack on the Madina Monawara mosque, saying that "even though they are claiming to build the so-called New Iraq," such incidents had never occurred before. Meanwhile, the Associated Press reported that three people employed by Moqtada al-Sadr, the radical Shiite cleric and militia leader, were killed Wednesday in a drive-by shooting in Baghdad. Elsewhere, the U.S. military said, three insurgents were killed when an unmanned Predator drone shot a Hellfire missile at them while they were planting a roadside bomb near the Balad air base north of Baghdad. Two U.S. soldiers were killed Tuesday, one by small-arms fire south of Baghdad, the other when his Humvee struck a roadside bomb near Habbaniyah, 50 miles west of Baghdad, in a region that is considered a stronghold for Sunni Arab insurgents from al-Qaeda in Iraq, the military said in a statement. Three soldiers were injured in the blast, which hit a convoy that was returning to Baghdad. Three Iraqi soldiers were killed and one was wounded when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb in Hawijah, about 30 miles southwest of the northern town of Kirkuk, according to Capt. Emad Mohammed of the local police. He said the soldiers were traveling in a convoy that included U.S. troops, none of whom was injured in the blast. The U.S. military was investigating the death of a 25-year-old Iraqi detainee Sunday at the military's Camp Bucca prison in southern Iraq, according to the Reuters news agency. The man died of apparent head injuries inflicted during a fight with another inmate, the report said. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #3 Wish we could do a better job at tracking down people who attack the Iraqi's like this. Too bad they are probably hiding in Sadr City or we might have already tracked down and killed them. |
| Posted by: Charles 2006-03-30 04:24 |
| #2 BAM! |
| Posted by: RD 2006-03-30 01:10 |
| #1 three insurgents were killed when an unmanned Predator drone shot a Hellfire missile at them while they were planting a roadside bomb near the Balad air base north of Baghdad What fun! |
| Posted by: Captain America 2006-03-30 00:27 |