Iraqi police storm farm to free 17 hostages

Iraqi police stormed a farm north of Baghdad early today and freed at least 17 people who were snatched a day earlier in a mass kidnapping of 64 workers and family members at the end of a factory shift.

The US military today reported four Marines and a soldier were killed in operations south and west of Baghdad, and an explosion of sectarian and revenge killings in Iraq’s third largest city over the past three days claimed 24 lives.

Nine days into a security crackdown in Baghdad, meanwhile, insurgent and sectarian bloodletting was muted, with no major violent incidents reported by midday.

A bomb planted on a motorcycle exploded near a popular market in central Baghdad’s Alawi district, killing two people and injuring 25 others.

A roadside bomb in Jibla town killed an Iraqi army soldiers and a civilian. In Kut, police said they found six bullet-riddle bodies floating down the Tigris river.

The freed kidnap victims brought to 49 the number of captives who have been either released by their captors or extricated by police. About 30 of the hostages, mainly women and children, were released shortly after they were taken captive. It is routine in Iraq for women to take their children to work.

Industry Minister Fowzi Hariri told state-run Iraqiya TV that 64 people were kidnapped as they were heading home and two people were killed when they resisted.

One kidnap victim, a Shiite Muslim, said he was set free last night after showing the kidnappers a forged ID card listing him as a Sunni. He said two hostages had been killed trying to escape. The man refused to give his name fearing retribution.

“As we were leaving the factory we were stopped by gunmen. The got on our buses and told us to put our heads down. Then they took us to a poultry farm,” the man said.

“One of the gunmen told us to stand in one line and then asked the Sunnis to get out of the line. That’s what I did. They asked me to prove that I am a Sunni, so I showed the forged ID and three others did the same. They released us,” the man said.

A National Security Ministry official said several insurgents holding the kidnap victims were captured during today’s raid on the farm in the Mishada area, 20 miles north of the capital.

Police operations were continuing in the area, the official said, in a bid to locate the rest of the victims who were taken at the end of the day shift at al-Nasr General Complex, a former military plant that now makes metal doors, windows and pipes.

Sectarian violence has raged in the region and tit-for-tat kidnappings and revenge killings are common, but nothing had been reported on the scale of yesterday’s mass abduction. The al-Nasr plant is between Baghdad and Taji, a predominantly Sunni Arab area.