[Previous entry: "Ali Farka Toure"] [Next entry: "US demands drastic action as Iran nuclear row escalates"]

03/09/2006:

"Developments in Iraq, March 8"

* MOSUL - Hospital and police sources said they received five bodies shot dead by U.S. forces in Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad. No details of the incident were available. The U.S. military said it was checking the report.
BAGHDAD - Gunmen attacked the house of Interior Minister advisor Major General Hikmat Moussa Salman in western Baghdad. Police said two of his bodyguards were killed and two wounded.
BAGHDAD - Gunmen wearing Iraqi police commando uniforms seized about 50 employees from the offices of a security company in eastern Baghdad, police said.
BAGHDAD - Four civilians were wounded when a car bomb exploded near a U.S. patrol in the western part of Baghdad, police said.
BAGHDAD - Two Interior Ministry personnel were killed and five wounded when a roadside bomb went off near minister of interior's convoy in eastern Baghdad, an Interior Ministry official said.
TAL AFAR - A U.S. soldier was killed and four others wounded on Tuesday when a roadside bomb went off near their patrol in Tal Afar northwest of Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, U.S. military said in a statement.
BAQUBA - Iraqi army and police arrested 19 suspects in raids in Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.
BAGHDAD - The bodies of 18 men, bound and blindfolded, were found on Tuesday night in a minibus in western Baghdad, an Interior Ministry spokesman said.
FALLUJA - Four civilians were killed and two wounded when a roadside bomb exploded in a main road in Falluja, police said.
BAGHDAD - Two policemen were killed and six civilians and two policemen wounded when a roadside bomb went off near a police patrol in central Baghdad, police said.
BAGHDAD - The bodies of two people were found, bound and blindfolded, after they were shot dead in eastern Baghdad, police said.
alertnet.org


50 security firm workers kidnapped in Iraq
BAGHDAD, Iraq — Gunmen in Interior Ministry commando uniforms stormed the offices of a private security company and kidnapped as many as 50 employees today, while U.S. and Iraqi patrols reported the discovery of 24 shot or garroted bodies in the capital.

Iraq's Shiite vice president, meanwhile, signed a presidential decree calling parliament into session, breaking a major logjam that had delayed the creation of a unity government that U.S. officials hope can curb the unrelenting violence so their forces can start going home in the summer.

"He signed the decree today. I expect the first session to be held on Sunday or by the end of next week at the latest," said Nadim al-Jabiri, head of one of seven Shiite parties that make up the United Iraqi Alliance, the largest bloc in parliament.

Unidentified attackers hit the al-Rawafid Security Co. at 4:30 p.m. and forced the workers into seven vehicles, including several white SUVs, said Interior Ministry Maj. Falah al-Mohammedawi. The victims, including bodyguards, drivers, computer technicians and other employees, did not resist because they assumed their abductors were police special forces working for the Interior Ministry, al-Mohammedawi said.


Official Says Shiite Party Suppressed Body Count
BAGHDAD, March 8 -- Days after the bombing of a Shiite shrine unleashed a wave of retaliatory killings of Sunnis, the leading Shiite party in Iraq's governing coalition directed the Health Ministry to stop tabulating execution-style shootings, according to a ministry official familiar with the recording of deaths.

The official, who spoke on the condition that he not be named because he feared for his safety, said a representative of the Shiite party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, ordered that government hospitals and morgues catalogue deaths caused by bombings or clashes with insurgents, but not by execution-style shootings.

A statement this week by the U.N. human rights department in Baghdad appeared to support the account of the Health Ministry official. The agency said it had received information about Baghdad's main morgue -- where victims of fatal shootings are taken -- that indicated "the current acting director is under pressure by the Interior Ministry in order not to reveal such information and to minimize the number of casualties."