Iraqi PM: Mass kidnapping not terrorism

Iraq’s prime minister has blamed the mass kidnapping at an education ministry building on an inter-militia conflict.

Nouri Maliki said yesterday’s broad-daylight kidnapping of dozens of people in Baghdad by suspected Shiite militiamen dressed as interior ministry commandos had nothing to do with terrorism.

“What is happening is not terrorism, but the result of disagreements and conflict between militias belonging to this side or that,” he said during a meeting with President Jalal Talabani.

Maliki, who leads a Shiite-dominated Iraqi government, appeared to play down the importance of the kidnappings, believed to be the work of the Mahdi Army, the heavily-armed al-Sadr militia that controls the Karradah district, the central Baghdad region where the abductions happened.

The kidnappers had cleared the area under the guise of providing security for what they claimed would be a visit to the building by the US ambassador.

Witnesses and authorities said the gunmen raced through all four storeys of the building, forced men and women into separate rooms, handcuffed the men and loaded them aboard about 20 pick-up trucks.

Shortly afterwards, authorities arrested six senior police officers in connection with the abductions, the police chief and five subordinates in Karradah, Interior Ministry spokesman Major General Jalil Khalaf said.

There were varying estimates of the number of people kidnapped, but it appeared that at least 50 were seized, one of the largest mass abductions in Iraq.

Authorities said as many as 20 were later released, but said a broadcast report that most hostages were freed appeared to be false.

The assault came on a day that saw at least 117 people die in the mounting disorder and violence gripping the country.

The abductions in broad daylight raised further questions about prime minister Nouri Maliki’s commitment to wiping out the heavily-armed Shiite militias of his prime political backers, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) and the Sadrist Movement of radical, anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

Maliki faces intense pressure from the US to disband and disarm the militias and their death squads, which are deeply involved in the country’s sectarian slaughter and are believed to have thoroughly infiltrated the police and security forces.

US Central Command chief General John Abizaid warned Maliki face-to-face on Monday that he must disband the militias and give the US proof that they had been disarmed, according to senior Iraqi government officials.

So far, the prime minister has said the militias should not act illegally, but has taken no tough action against them.

Iraqi officials gave wildly differing accounts of how many people were abducted in the raid on the ministry of higher education office that handles academic grants and exchanges. Figures ranged from as many as 150 to as few as 45.

By last night the top estimate, given by higher education minister Abed Theyab, appeared to have been inflated.

Both the interior and defence ministries issued statements declaring that no more than 50 people were abducted, but the lower figure included only employees known to have been at work in the building and did not count an unknown number of people in the office on business.

Even at 50, the mass abduction would be the equal of two past kidnappings in which at least 50 victims were spirited away by gunmen.

Yesterday’s kidnapping was believed to have been retribution for the abduction three days earlier of 50 Shiite passengers snatched off minibuses by Sunni gunmen at a fake checkpoint along the highway near Latifiyah, about 20 miles south of Baghdad.

The gunmen killed 10 passengers before making away with their captives.