Iraqi forces free 15 Shi'ite hostage families

IRAQI security forces raided a town in central Iraq and freed some 15 Shi'ite families being held hostage yesterday, an official said, after Sunni militants threatened to kill captives unless all Shi'ites left the area.

The Government said it was trying to resolve the stand-off peacefully, while Shi'ite lawmakers called for action to stop "terrorist groups from promoting sectarian violence."

Security forces, who had the town of Madain surrounded, began raiding sites Saturday in search of those abducted, said Qassim Dawoud, the minister in charge of national security.

Witnesses said road blocks were set up and no one was allowed to leave or enter the town of about 1,000 families some 15 miles southeast of Baghdad. However, shops opened and the streets were calm.

Iraqi forces had freed about 15 Shi'ite families, said Haidar Khayon, an official at the Defence Ministry in Baghdad. He said five hostage-takers were captured in a skirmish with light gunfire, but no casualties were reported.

Sabah Khadum, an interior ministry adviser, said officials didn't know how many hostages were being held or whether it was a sectarian crisis or merely a tribal dispute. He said the interior and defence ministries hoped to resolve it peacefully.

Iraq's most feared terror group, meanwhile, accused the Shi'ite-dominated government of making the whole thing up.

Elsewhere, three American soldiers were killed and seven service members wounded overnight when insurgents fired mortar rounds at a US Marine base near Ramadi, 70 miles west of Baghdad, the military said yesterday. Residents said dozens of armed militants had tried to force their way into Camp Blue Diamond, but the US military denied that. The assault raised to 24 the number of people who died in Iraq on Saturday, including an American civilian who died in a car bomb attack in the capital. The US Embassy said it believed the slain American was Marla Ruzicka of the Washington-based human rights group Civic Worldwide, but it was still waiting for DNA results.

Insurgents also killed seven Iraqis in scattered violence around Iraq, including assassinations and drive-by shootings, police said.

The hostage crisis began Thursday when Sunni militants attacked a Shi'ite mosque with explosives. Haitham Husseini, a spokesman for the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the country's largest Shi'ite group, said the mosque was badly damaged. The next day, Husseini said about 100 masked militants drove through Madain, capturing Shi'ites. Shi'ite leaders and government officials estimated 35 to 100 people were taken hostage.

A resident reached by telephone said the militants had returned early Saturday, shouting through loudspeakers that all Shi'ites must leave or the hostages would be killed. Later, residents said the town appeared calm and there was no sign of insurgents. Some said they had seen no evidence any hostages had been taken. The conflicting accounts could not be reconciled.

Other retaliatory kidnappings by Sunni and Shi'ite groups have occurred in the violent, ethnically mixed region, but the abductions appeared to be the first attempt by insurgents to forcibly evacuate a town along sectarian lines.

Dawoud told Iraqi legislators in Baghdad on Sunday that Iraqi soldiers, police and US forces were sent to Madain on Saturday afternoon.

"Our plan is by the end of this week we are going to launch a military operation in this area."

The US military said it had no information about a US role in the deployment.