Wednesday, April 04, 2007
In escalation of mass kidnappings 22 shephards seized
Security
(AFP) - Gunmen wearing police uniforms seized 22 shepherds and their sheep in southern Iraq on Wednesday in the latest mass abduction of Shiite workers by presumed Sunni insurgents. Travelling in three cars, the kidnappers swooped on the shepherds in an isolated desert area north of the Shiite shrine city of Karbala and took their truck, herd and weapons, said Karbala police spokesman Rahman Mushawi.
The victims were forced into vehicles and driven towards the neighbouring Sunni province of Al-Anbar, a hotbed of Al-Qaeda and Sunni insurgents opposed to the Shiite-led government and its US backers. Eleven electricity plant workers were killed in an ambush as they drove to work in northern Iraq on Wednesday, while gunmen staged a mass kidnap at a fake security checkpoint south of Baghdad, police said. The violence comes as Iraqi and U.S. military commanders warn that militants are shifting the focus of their attacks to outside Baghdad, where thousands of U.S. and Iraqi troops have taken to the streets to crack down on sectarian bloodletting.
Police said gunmen stopped a vehicle carrying 11 electricity workers near Hawija, about 70 km (40 miles) southwest of the northern city of Kirkuk, and then opened fire on the men inside. Seven of the workers died instantly while four others were fatally wounded and died later in hospital.
It was not clear whether the attack was linked to an ambush in the same area on Saturday, when gunmen shot dead eight civilian employees of an Iraqi military base. Four brothers were among the dead in that incident.
In the so-called "Triangle of Death", a Sunni insurgent stronghold south of Baghdad, gunmen manning a fake checkpoint kidnapped passengers traveling in six minibus taxis and a car, said an official in the police chief's office in the town of Hilla.
The incident took place on a main road from the capital, near an area called Latifiya. The official said it was not clear how many people had been seized, but the minibuses can carry up to 11 passengers, plus the driver.
Motorists who managed to escape the gunmen reported seeing the kidnap victims being taken in the direction of Latifiya.
The victims were forced into vehicles and driven towards the neighbouring Sunni province of Al-Anbar, a hotbed of Al-Qaeda and Sunni insurgents opposed to the Shiite-led government and its US backers. Eleven electricity plant workers were killed in an ambush as they drove to work in northern Iraq on Wednesday, while gunmen staged a mass kidnap at a fake security checkpoint south of Baghdad, police said. The violence comes as Iraqi and U.S. military commanders warn that militants are shifting the focus of their attacks to outside Baghdad, where thousands of U.S. and Iraqi troops have taken to the streets to crack down on sectarian bloodletting.
Police said gunmen stopped a vehicle carrying 11 electricity workers near Hawija, about 70 km (40 miles) southwest of the northern city of Kirkuk, and then opened fire on the men inside. Seven of the workers died instantly while four others were fatally wounded and died later in hospital.
It was not clear whether the attack was linked to an ambush in the same area on Saturday, when gunmen shot dead eight civilian employees of an Iraqi military base. Four brothers were among the dead in that incident.
In the so-called "Triangle of Death", a Sunni insurgent stronghold south of Baghdad, gunmen manning a fake checkpoint kidnapped passengers traveling in six minibus taxis and a car, said an official in the police chief's office in the town of Hilla.
The incident took place on a main road from the capital, near an area called Latifiya. The official said it was not clear how many people had been seized, but the minibuses can carry up to 11 passengers, plus the driver.
Motorists who managed to escape the gunmen reported seeing the kidnap victims being taken in the direction of Latifiya.
COMMENT: Mass sectarian kidnappings since the security crackdown are on the increase again. This could be due to death squad and militia activity increasing outside Baghdad. Alternatively the electricity workers could have been murdered for their 'cooperation' with the coalition either by Sunni militants or Shia extremists. The third possibility is that this is a new tactic being used by Al Qaeda to intensify sectarian violence. COMMENT ENDS.
Labels: abduction, Al Anbar, ambush, Hawija, Karbala, Latifiyah, mass kidnappings, shepards
