Mass kidnap by gunmen in Baghdad

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Source: CCTV.com | 11-15-2006 08:33

Special Report:   Iraq in Transition

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Gunmen wearing uniforms of the Iraqi police commando units have rounded up dozens of men at a government building in central Baghdad. They then drove off. This may be the biggest mass kidnapping in a city increasingly used to such violence.

Police and eyewitnesses say gunmen arrived in new pick-up vehicles and stormed the Research Directorate building of the Higher Education Ministry in Karrada, a religiously mixed neighborhood.

The head of the parliament's education committee interrupted lawmakers to say between 100 and 150 people, both Shiites and Sunnis had been abducted.

Alaa Makki, head of Parliamentary education committee said, “A group of terrorists in a military uniform said they were from the Commission on Public Integrity to combat government corruption and that they had lists of wanted people, so they kidnapped all the men they found there. They kidnapped Deputy Director Generals, all employees, assistants and cleaners, leaving nobody behind.”