The Battle of Baghdad

[SWJED]

14 November Voice of America and Washington Post:

VOA:

Gunmen in Iraq dressed as police commandos have kidnapped as many as 100 people during a lightning raid on a Baghdad research institute. Authorities say at least three people were later released. It is believed to be the largest mass abduction since the start of the conflict.

In a well-organized raid, police and witnesses say about 80 gunmen wearing the uniforms of Iraqi police commandos closed off the streets surrounding the Scientific Research Directorate of the Ministry of Education in the central Karradah district.

Ministry spokesman Abdul-Karim Khallaf, told The Associated Press the police chief of the Karradah neighborhood where the kidnappings occurred has been placed under investigation along with some of his officers.

The head of the parliament's education committee told legislators that the kidnappers had a list of names of those to be taken away.


Education committee chairman Alaa Makki told legislators that the kidnappers claimed they were on a mission from the government's anti-corruption body.

In contrast to the usually sectarian nature of Iraqi violence, Makki said the kidnappers did not discriminate between Sunni or Shiite Muslims, taking every man including institute officials, employees, visitors and even the building's cleaning staff.

A police spokesman said the entire operation took only about 20 minutes.

One witness, a female professor who was visiting the ministry when the raid occurred, said the gunmen forced men and women into separate rooms, handcuffed the men, and then took them away in about six pickup trucks. She added that some of the gunmen wore face masks.

Iraq's Minister of Higher Education Abed Dhiab al-Ujaili immediately suspended classes at Baghdad universities until the government provides them with adequate security.

The minister told parliament that he had no other option until authorities find out what happened. He said he is not ready to lose any more professors.

At least 155 educators have been killed since the war began in 2003. Most recently, a university dean and a prominent Sunni Arab geology professor were murdered.

Washington Post:

Armed men in Iraqi police uniforms and driving police vehicles kidnapped as many as 150 people from a government agency on Tuesday, and several senior police commanders were arrested in connection with the abductions, Iraqi officials said today.

The abductions were a well-orchestrated reminder of how challenging basic security remains in Iraq at a time when U.S. officials are pressing the local government to assert more control.

News of the mass kidnapping was announced dramatically on the floor of the national Parliament, and within hours an Iraqi Interior Ministry spokesman said on national television that several police officials in charge of the area where the kidnappings occurred had been arrested.

Precise figures on how many people were kidnapped and how many were later released were hard to come by. The prime minister's office said more than 50 people were kidnapped and 20 later released. The Interior Ministry said 30 people were kidnapped and the Ministry of Higher Education said it was as many as 150 employees and visitors who were abducted...

[Jedburgh]

Reuters, 23 Nov 06: Bombs kill 133 in Baghdad, curfew imposed

...six car bombs killed 133 people in a Shi'ite stronghold in Baghdad on Thursday, one of the most devastating attacks since the U.S. invasion and likely to inflame sectarian passions in a nation sliding toward civil war. The authorities slapped an indefinite curfew on the city....

...A further 201 people were wounded in the bombings, police said. The Health Minister said the toll would rise. "Many of the dead have been reduced to scattered body parts and are not counted yet," Ali al-Shemari told Reuters. The blasts came at the same time as gunmen surrounded and fired on the Shi'ite-run Health Ministry in one of the boldest daylight assaults by militants in Baghdad. Mortars later crashed down on a nearby Sunni enclave in an apparent reprisal attack...

Other sources are reporting a greater number of dead; the situation is still developing...