Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Mass Kidnapping in Iraq

According to Reuters most of the 100+ men kidnapped in Baghdad are now free.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Most of the dozens of hostages seized at a Higher Education Ministry building on Tuesday were freed in operations by security forces in Baghdad, state television Iraqiya said early on Wednesday.

There was no immediate confirmation of late night raids to free the hostages or word on whether any had been injured.

Amid new suspicions of police complicity in the latest and biggest mass kidnapping, the interior minister hauled in police chiefs to explain how dozens of gunmen swept into the Higher Education Ministry annexe, rounded up those inside, and drove them off in broad daylight toward a Shi'ite militia stronghold.

Iraqiya quoted an Interior Ministry spokesman as saying operations were continuing in the early hours of Wednesday to free the remaining hostages.

Can people please stop pretending now that there isn't a civil war going on over there? Seriously, how could a kidnapping on such a massive scale take place in an area where the US brass is supposed to be on top of intelligence gathering and security? What a huge failure. And that, along with almost daily reports of tortured bodies being found numbering in the dozens, ought to provide some clue to the Pentagon and its supporters that it doesn't seem to even matter that US troops are there.

The death squads are rampant. The violence won't be ending any time soon. The coalition can't just blame al-Maliki for what's going on. On the one hand they tell people to have patience because he's only been in office a few months while on the other they are pressuring him to take immediate control. And just how is that supposed to happen? No one seems to know. In the midst of all of this finger-pointing, people keep dying. When, exactly, is this going to end?

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