| Central Baghdad was gripped by panic on Thursday as a heavily armed gang in police uniforms kidnapped four dozen businessmen in a brazen daylight raid on a busy commercial street. Twenty-nine of the hostages were freed later. A convoy of sports utility vehicles of the type issued to government security forces sealed off Rashid Street near the east bank of the Tigris. Around 100 gunmen, in police uniform and brandishing the Glock pistols issued by the US military to Iraqi security forces, went from shop to shop stealing cash and seizing between 40 and 50 hostages, witnesses said. Meanwhile, a car bomb in Mahaweel, 60 kilometres south of Baghdad, killed at least two people and wounded six, police said. Two more people were killed and nine wounded in a suicide car bombing at an Iraqi army checkpoint in west Baghdad, the military said. In a related development, gunmen attacked the convoy of IraqÂ’s Shia vice president, Adel Abdul Mahdi, in Baghdad on Thursday, but there were no injuries, Interior Ministry spokesman Brigadier Abdul Karim Khalaf said. An aide to Mahdi denied any attack had occurred, saying the vice president was in his office. Khalaf and two Interior Ministry officials said that Mahdi was in the convoy but was not hurt. |