IRAQ: Iraq at odds over missing hostages as suicide bomber strikes at a funeral in Baghad

Record ID: 352199

  • Title: IRAQ: Iraq at odds over missing hostages as suicide bomber strikes at a funeral in Baghad
  • Date: 15th November 2006
  • Summary: STUDENTS WALKING INSIDE THE BAGHDAD UNIVERSITY
  • Embargoed: 30th November 2006 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Iraq
  • Country: Iraq
  • Topics: War / Fighting
  • Reuters ID: LVA7K92M2DJH8J7HEC52PG40NYW7
  • Story Text: A suicide car bomber exploded near a funeral in south Baghdad on Wednesday (November 15), killing at least three people and wounding 12, police and Interior Ministry sources said.
    Medical staff at the hospital where the wounded were being treated said most appeared to be Shi'ite Muslims and victims of a sectarian attack.
    Earlier, a car bomb exploded close to an Iraqi police convoy in the centre of the Iraqi capital, wounding two civilians, police said. They said the attack took place in al-Nidhal street of central Baghdad.
    Insurgents frequently attack Iraq's U.S.-trained security forces, which are a key part of Washington's plans for an eventual withdrawal of its 140,000 troops in Iraq.
    Also on Wednesday, British forces killed an Iraqi in the southern city of Basra, relatives and witnesses said.
    They said that Karim Kate' Karim, 35, was killed during a raid by the British forces of his home in al-Qibla district, south of the Basra city, 550 km (340 miles) south of Baghdad.
    His mother, Sabeiha Khydhair Talib, 55, was wounded in the raid and was evacuated by the British forces to military hospital where she died later of her wounds.
    Karim's brother was arrested during the raid.
    A British soldier was wounded and an Iraqi woman died due to wounds sustained in the incident, the spokesman said.
    Britain has some 7,000 troops in southern Iraq, which has generally been calmer than the centre and north of the country, and 125 British armed forces personnel have died since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.
    A day after a mass kidnap from a Baghdad ministry raised fears Iraq's sectarian militias are out of control, government leaders gave sharply differing accounts on Wednesday of whether dozens of hostages were still missing.
    The minister whose staff were targeted said up to 80 were still unaccounted for, possibly held by Shi'ite militia, but the government spokesman said only two to five people were missing.
    Higher Education Minister Abd Dhiab, from the Sunni Arab minority, told Reuters that until the hostages were found he would boycott the U.S.-sponsored national unity government led by Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
    The prime minister played down a mass kidnap of civil servants in which many may still be missing on, calling it "not terrorism" but a "dispute between militias" of the sort loyal to rival political parties.
    A government spokesman said most of the dozens of hostages seized at a Higher Education Ministry building in central Baghdad on Tuesday (November 14) 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.
    Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki told reporters at a news conference at Baghdad University: "We regret the criminal act that was carried out by gangsters yesterday, but the reaction of the government was powerful and despite the fact that most of those kidnapped were released this is not enough for us, as we will follow those who committed this awful act, which was not done by good people with national and legitimate (principles). They insisted on putting their hands with the devil who aimed at destroying this country. If they have conflicts so let them conflict far away from such bad means."
    He said that 27 employees had been released as well as a number of people who were visiting the ministry annexe when gunmen in police uniform rounded up all the men present and drove them off toward the Shi'ite bastion of Sadr City in broad daylight.
    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 after the attack on the ministry that oversees them, Maliki emphasised that universities would remain open and should be free of sectarian influence.
    However, government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said the 37 people who had been freed accounted for nearly all of those taken -- only a few, perhaps two to five, were still missing.
    He said the Higher Education Ministry was mistaken in saying that about 100 people were initially abducted and put the total number of hostages hauled away on Tuesday at around 40.
    Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul Kareem Khalaf said he could not give a total figure for the number of hostages but hoped to do so soon.
    He said operations were still under way and security forces were closing in on areas where they suspected the hostages may have been taken. He declined to say where.
    Maliki himself played down the mass kidnap, which has put further strain on his government to disband militias involved in sectarian violence. He said most of the hostages were free.
    But employees' families said at least several of their relatives were still missing and they feared for their lives.
    Taha Mustafa said he came to the building of the Higher Education Directorate from the early morning to know the whereabouts of his cousin.
    "I'm here to ask about the whereabouts of my cousin. I want to know where he is! I have no idea about his fate. Yesterday we waited here until 1800 p.m. (1500 GMT) and today I'm here from 0700 a.m. (0400 GMT). (Do you have an idea about the side which kidnapped him?) No, we do not know who took him," he said.
    Officials declined to characterise the raid as a Shi'ite militia attack and would not comment on similarities to other such mass kidnappings, when hostages have been segregated according to their religion and either freed or killed.
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