Eight Iraqis killed in attack on Baghdad minibus

Gunmen stopped a Baghdad minibus and killed all eight Iraqis on board today.

Meanwhile in western Iraq, 15 tae kwon do athletes were kidnapped while driving to a training camp in neighbouring Jordan.

The victims of the Baghdad attack were seven car mechanics heading to work and their minibus driver.

The gunmen ordered all of them off the vehicle in a remote area of south-western Baghdad and shot them all, said police 1st Lt. Maithem Abde-Razaq.

Iraqis often pay small fees to commute to work on privately-owned minibuses in cities such as Baghdad.

The kidnapping of the 15-member Iraqi tae kwon team occurred yesterday on a road between the cities of Fallujah and Ramadi, one of the most violent areas of Iraq regarding fighting between US forces and insurgents.

The athletes were members of a private sports club that hoped to one day send athletes to the Olympics.

“We are negotiating with the kidnappers who are demanding a ransom. We are doing our best to ensure their release,” said Jamal Abdel-Karim, an official with the Iraqi Olympic Committee, which oversees professional and amateur sports teams.

In Mosul, 225 miles north-west of Baghdad, Iraqi and US forces killed three insurgents and wounded 10 in two separate gun battles yesterday, the US command said.

The first occurred when US forces caught insurgents burying a roadside bomb, the deadliest weapon that militants have against coalition forces, the US command said.

After the insurgents fled the area in several vehicles, the US forces searched a local hospital and found nine militants who had been wounded, the military said. All of them were detained. One Iraqi civilian was also wounded in the fighting, the US command said. One Iraqi civilian was wounded in the crossfire.

In the second fight, insurgents in two separate cars opened fire on a civilian vehicle on a road near Mosul, wounding three Iraqis, the military said.

US forces patrolling nearby opened fired at one of the insurgent cars, killing all three of its militants, the command said.

Iraqi police chased the other car, which stopped so its four militants could flee on foot. Police captured one wounded militant, but the others got away.