BAGHDAD, 3 March 2007 — Iraqi security forces found the bodies of 14 policemen yesterday, all shot in the head, hours after an Al-Qaeda-linked group showed pictures of 18 men it said were seized to avenge the alleged rape of a woman last month. Police said the bodies were discovered close to Baquba, the provincial capital of Diyala province, not far from where the men disappeared on Thursday.
“They were found in the streets of Baquba. Their throats had been cut and their hands were bound,” said Uday Al-Khadran, mayor of Khalis, the slain officers’ hometown in Diyala province, north of Baghdad. Earlier, the Interior Ministry said it was investigating the disappearance of 14 policemen. “The police are in the early stages of an investigation over the alleged kidnapping of 14 policemen who left Baquba to go on leave,” said Brig. Gen. Abdel Karim Khalaf, the ministry’s director of operations.
The apparent mass kidnapping of policemen underlined the challenge facing the US-backed government and Iraqi security forces in standing up to the insurgents. An Al-Qaeda-linked group called the Islamic State in Iraq said in an Internet statement it had kidnapped 18 men working for the Shiite-dominated Interior Ministry in Diyala province.
A police source in Diyala said 14 men, including a high-ranking officer, left their base in Baquba around 0800 GMT on Thursday to return to their homes in the area of Saadiyet Al-Shat, north of the city. Family members later identified the bodies at a morgue in Baquba as being those of the missing policemen, police said, but gave no other information.
In Baghdad, where US and Iraqi troops are engaged in a major security crackdown, police said a car bomb killed 10 people and wounded 17 when it ripped through a used car market in Sadr City, a stronghold of the Mehdi Army, a Shiite militia. US and Iraqi military officials said on Thursday troops would soon launch operations to seize weapons and hunt gunmen in Sadr City, signaling their resolve to press ahead with the last-ditch security plan even in sensitive areas.
The Mehdi Army is headed by Moqtada Al-Sadr, a key backer of Shiite Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki. Diyala, north of Baghdad, is home to Shiites, Sunni Arabs and Kurds and has seen relentless bloodshed. The Internet statement included photographs showing 18 men, some in uniform and some in civilian clothing, blindfolded in a room. Some appeared to have identity papers pinned to their shirts but it was not possible to read them.
A major Sunni Arab political party later said she was Shiite, not Sunni, and that Janabi was a false name. The alleged rape of Janabi — who appeared in a video broadcast on Arab news networks to complain of being raped by Interior Ministry officers — has triggered a bitter row at the highest levels of the Iraqi state. Sunni leaders, including Vice President Tareq Al-Hashemi, have largely given credence to her claims, which some say represent a much bigger problem of daily abuses carried out by government forces.
But Maliki, was quick to dismiss the charges, alleging the rape was invented by Sunni politicians to tarnish the police at the launch of a large Baghdad security operation. Maliki branded Janabi a liar and a criminal and ordered that the officers she accused be commended.
