Five senior Iraqi police officers were arrested on Tuesdya night after gunmen in police uniforms seized scores of people at a prominent scientific research institute in Baghdad in an audacious operation that underlined the lawlessness gripping the Iraqi capital and the threat it poses to the country’s tottering education system.
As many as 80 armed men took part in the morning attack, which netted male academics, employees and visitors to the ministry of higher education’s scientific research, scholarships and cultural relations directorate in Baghdad’s relatively peaceful Karradah district.
On Tuesday night, reports indicated that most if not all of the hostages had been released in police raids across the city.
But the episode, one of the biggest mass kidnappings since the 2003 war, raised pointed questions about the reliability of the Iraqi security forces.
Major General Jalil Khalaf, the interior ministry spokesperson, said those arrested in connection with the kidnapping included the police chief for Karradah. Also held were the commander of the police brigade in charge of the area and three other officers, he added.
The gunmen were wearing interior ministry commando uniforms specifically designed to prevent counterfeiting.
”It’s a terrorist act,” said Abed Dhiab, the minister for higher education. ”They kidnapped more than 100 employees and visitors.” The victims include Sunnis and Shias he added, though precise numbers were unclear. Initial reports suggested as many as 150 had been taken, though officials later revised that down to about 50.
According to police sources and witnesses, the gunmen arrived in more than 20 pick-up trucks and sports utility vehicles and sealed off the approaches to the building. Several cars approached the ministry’s checkpoint and their drivers reportedly told guards they were part of an advance group from the interior ministry conducting a security sweep before a visit by the US ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad.
Once inside the four-storey building, they forced men and women into separate rooms and took their cellphones. The men, including senior academics, guards and visitors, were hand-cuffed and loaded on to the back of the pick-up trucks and driven off. The operation, which began at about 9.30am, was over in 15 minutes.
The gunmen were reported to be heading toward the Shia stronghold of east Baghdad.
Insurgents, criminal gangs, and militias have frequently carried out attacks while posing as Iraqi security officers.
The interior ministry, which is controlled by the ruling Shia alliance, has repeatedly denied having links to the death squads and militias blamed by Sunni Arabs for instigating sectarian violence and kidnappings. A senior, non-Shia interior ministry source told the Guardian on Tuesday: ”In truth we don’t know whether the kidnappers were terrorists, militias, criminals, or interior ministry renegades. Whatever the explanation, it will do nothing for people’s trust in us.”
In response the minister for higher education, Dhiab, ordered the suspension of all academic programmes and closure all universities, though he later appeared to pull back from a full shutdown. ”I have only one choice, which is to suspend classes at universitiesa because I am not ready to see more professors get killed,” Dhiab told Parliament.
The minister, a member of a leading Sunni Arab party, also accused Iraq’s security chiefs of ignoring repeated requests to beef up security around educational institutions, following a series of threats.
Since the US invasion in 2003, Iraq’s academic institutions and staff have come under regular attack from insurgents and religious extremists. Scores of senior academics have been killed and thousands more threatened.
Adnan Pachachi, an Iraqi politician and ex-governing council member, said: ”There is evidence of a systematic and very sad attempt to drain Iraq of its brains.”
24 hours of bloodshed: Car bombs, raids and air strikes
Baghdad A car bomb in Sadr City, a Shia district, killed two and wounded 21, police said.
Baghdad Gunmen in Iraqi police commando uniforms kidnapped dozens of men from a higher education ministry building, the minister said. There was confusion over the number of hostages taken in the daylight raid – carried out in 15 minutes by a gang of up to 80 men. Some 20 were later released.
Baquba Iraqi police, backed by US forces, discovered the bodies of 10 kidnap victims, bound, blindfolded and with gunshot wounds in a house, Interior Ministry sources said. They arrived at the house after a shooting involving gunmen and police acting on a tipoff from neighbours.
Baghdad Mortars killed at least four and wounded six others in al-Zuhur.
Baghdad A bomb inside a bus station killed two and wounded 10.
Tikrit A car bomb in the downtown area of Saddam Hussein’s hometown wounded 10, including three policemen, police said.
Baghdad A car bomb ripped through a crowded market area in Rasheed street in the centre of the capital, killing 10 and wounding 25, police said.
Baghdad Gunmen killed a security guard for the former prime minister Iyad Allawi on his way home in the western Ghazaliya district of Baghdad, Allawi’s Iraqi National List party said.
Kirkuk One man shot dead, police said.
Mosul Police found 11 bodies with gunshot wounds.
Baquba Gunmen attacked a police patrol killing three policemen and wounding another.
Baghdad A car bomb wounded three in the northwestern Hurriya district, an Interior Ministry source said.
Baghdad Iraqi army killed three insurgents and arrested 72 suspected insurgents during the last 24 hours in different parts of Iraq, the defence ministry said in a statement.
Baghdad Chanting slogans in support of a radical, anti-American Shia cleric, mourners carried coffins through a Baghdad district where Iraqi officials said US forces killed six people in an overnight raid. The US military declined to confirm any operation in Shula.
Yusufiya US forces conducted an air strike on Monday in the town, killing three insurgents, the US military said. – Guardian Unlimited Â