BAGHDAD, 12 May 2006 — Gunmen kidnapped 10 people in two villages in northern Iraq yesterday, but US and Iraqi forces saved seven of them in a gunbattle, police said. Three American soldiers were killed in separate attacks south of the capital.
In another development, Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, Iraq’s top Shiite cleric, ordered all Shiite mosques to close for three days in a town in southern Iraq where a local Sunni Arab leader was killed.
The hostage drama occurred in two mostly Sunni Arab villages near Baquba, 60 kilometers northeast of Baghdad.
The attackers arrived in several cars and pickup trucks about 6:30 a.m. and seized 10 young men from their homes, police said. But local sheikhs and citizens confronted them, police said.
Iraqi and US forces rushed to the scene and fierce fighting took place, police said. Five gunmen were wounded and 36 captured, and three villagers injured, police said in a statement.
Seven of the hostages were freed, but one vehicle escaped with the other three, police said.
The identities of the kidnappers were unclear, but they were believed to be a Shiite death squad. Police said some of the gunmen belonged to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr’s militia, the Mahdi Army.
The captors wore fake military uniforms or civilian clothes and some carried false Health Ministry identification cards, police said.
Curbing militias and death squads is a key goal of the incoming Iraqi government. To achieve that goal, officials plan to restructure police forces in the capital under the newly formed National Police force. All its members will wear a newly designed uniform and drive similar patrol cars, a move aimed at making it easier to identify rogue elements and death squads.
The three US soldiers died when roadside bombs hit two separate US Army convoys southwest of Baghdad, the military said. The US command also announced that another US soldier died two days ago from non-combat related wounds suffered near Mosul, 360 kilometers northwest of Baghdad. The statement said the cause of death was being investigated.
Al-Sistani’s order followed the killing of Sunni imam Sheikh Khaled Ali Obeid Al-Saadoun and two of his associates as they left a mosque after evening prayers in the mostly Sunni town of Zubayr in the southern Iraq.
Al-Sistani ordered Shiite mosques in the town to close for 3 days to protest the killings as well as other attacks against Sunnis in mostly Shiite Basra province.
On Wednesday, President Jalal Talabani urged Iraq’s feuding factions to unite against surging crime and terrorism.
In yesterday’s violence, a Shiite history professor, Widad Al-Shimri, and her 7-year-old daughter were slain as they drove through the city of Baquba, police said.
Five municipal street cleaners were killed and two others wounded in a blast in western Baghdad, police 1st Lt. Thaeir Mahmoud said.
