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 spokesperson 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 United States-sponsored national unity government led by Shi’ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
”I have suspended my participation as a minister with the government until those people who have been kidnapped are released,” he said.
”If I can’t save and protect the lives of the people in my ministry, whether professors or employees or students, there is no use my staying in the ministry.”
He said 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.
”Around 70 or 80 still being held,” Dhiab said.
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 about 40.
Interior Ministry spokesperson 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.
Four of those identified by Reuters as still being missing are all Sunnis, while the only person identified as being released, a senior ministry official, is a Shi’ite.
However, 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. — Reuters