BAGHDAD, 18 December 2006 — The latest in a series of mass kidnappings spread terror in Baghdad yesterday as British Prime Minister Tony Blair made a suprise visit to support his embattled Iraqi counterpart Nuri Al-Maliki.
More than 25 aid workers were hauled off at gunpoint from a Baghdad office of the Iraqi Red Crescent aid agency by a gang of 50 gunmen sporting police uniforms, the second such mass abduction in Baghdad in three days.
The hostage-takers, jumping out of around 10 pick-up trucks, raided the Red Cresent building in the Karrada district in broad daylight, snatching at least two dozen men but leaving women behind, witnesses and officials said.
Nada Doumani, a spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), part of the same movement as the Red Crescent, said 25 aid workers and an unknown number of people visiting the office were taken.
A short distance away another gang — again in the uniforms of the Shiite-dominated security forces — shot dead one Sunni local councilor and kidnapped three more from their car, a security official said.
The latest abductions came just three days after gunmen in military uniforms snatched dozens of businessmen from a commercial street in Baghdad, before releasing around 29 of their captives, all Shiites.
Against the bloody backdrop of the violence engulfing Iraq, Blair stood shoulder to shoulder with the country’s beleaguered premier and gave strong backing to his efforts to reunite the war-torn nation.
Blair’s visit, which was planned in secret to protect him from attack by insurgent gangs, came as the Iraqi government held fresh peace talks to fend off civil war.
Shootings yesterday also left three security officials dead and at least 21 bodies were found in Baghdad, Baquba and Kirkuk.
The US military also announced that three of its soldiers were killed by a bomb on Saturday, bringing the number of US fatalities in Iraq since the 2003 invasion to 2,944, according to a count on Pentagon figures.
