BAGHDAD, 14 August 2006 — Iraqi and US troops hunting alleged kidnappers raided the Health Ministry yesterday, arresting five suspects as the embattled government stepped up its make-or-break battle against insurgent fighters. The government also announced that it had arrested a 16-member gang alleged to have been plotting attacks on Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki’s family.
“Acting on an Iraqi citizen’s tip regarding kidnap victims, Iraqi forces with US advisers searched the Ministry of Health at about 2:30 a.m. and detained five for further questioning,” an official from the US-led coalition said. “It is for the benefit of the Iraqi people that these forces conducted the search and detained the suspects for further questioning,” said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity while a full statement was being prepared.
Following the arrests, ministry workers mounted a small non-violent anti-American protest outside their offices to demand the release of the detainees, described by one official as guards attached to the ministry.
Ministry spokesman Qasim Yahiya denounced the raid and said staff had launched an open-ended strike in protest. He demanded that Maliki’s Cabinet reign in US forces and threatened to lodge a complaint before an Iraqi court.
“We are demanding the five kidnapped bodyguards be freed. They were just protecting the ministry... This raid targeted a humanitarian institution,” he said, branding the reports of kidnapping as “lies.” Yahiya said that doors and furniture had been damaged in the security operation and that troops had also searched an official’s private home.
Iraq’s ministries are controlled by rival factions within the country’s fragile coalition government, and ministers’ bodyguards have sometimes been accused of acting as private militias in the brutal world of Baghdad politics. The Health Ministry is headed by Ali Al-Shamari, a Shiite minister who is a member of the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) party and is regarded as close to Moqtada Sadr.
Meanwhile, Baghdad’s vicious sectarian war continued, with more victims of the city’s death squads washing up along the Tigris River. “An army patrol picked up 12 corpses, most of them in civilian clothes. They had been shot in the head except one, who was beheaded. All of them had been tortured,” said a statement from the Ministry of Defense.
Maliki’s government also announced the arrest of 16 alleged insurgents accused of planting car bombs in the war-torn capital and plotting to kidnap or kill the prime minister’s relatives. A statement from Maliki’s office said group members had been captured over the previous 24 hours in Maliki’s hometown of Hindiyah, south of Baghdad.
“They were planning to attack, kidnap or assassinate close relatives of Prime Minister Maliki,” the statement said. “They confessed to crimes such as murder, rape and an attack on a police station in Mahmudiyah which killed six officers. One member of this gang confessed to blowing up 10 car bombs in Baghdad,” the statement said, adding that the suspects’ case files would be transferred to Kerbala for prosecution.
