BAGHDAD, 16 July 2006 — Gunmen in uniforms seized 30 or more Iraqi sports officials, including the national Olympics chief, and their bodyguards in Baghdad yesterday, barely an hour after parliament voted to extend a state of emergency. The kidnappings at a central Baghdad hall where the officials were meeting occurred despite a crackdown by Iraqi forces in the capital. Shiite Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki’s national unity government is struggling to get a grip on worsening sectarian violence.
Later in the day, bombings in a commercial area of Baghdad’s southern Saidiya district killed seven people and wounded 12, police said. Both Sunnis and Shiites live in the area. Olympic Committee chief Ahmed Al-Hejea, along with committee secretary-general Abdel Jabbar, head of Iraq’s tae kwon do federation Jamal Abdel Karim, head of water sports Saeb Al-Hakim and dozens of security guards were abducted in a bold daylight operation that took just a few minutes. Police and Interior Ministry sources said gunmen wearing blue camouflage uniforms used by the ministry stormed the central Baghdad hall at about 2 p.m. (1000 GMT) and killed a bodyguard of Hejea.
Hejea and about 20 bodyguards, along with at least eight committee officials and the hall’s guards, were then bundled into a convoy of vehicles and driven off, police sources said. Police said the body of a second bodyguard was found dumped not far from the meeting hall. He had been shot in the head. Several of the hall’s security guards were later found unharmed.
A committee official who was not present said the event was a regular, six-monthly meeting of the body, which has been trying to resurrect Iraqi sport amid deepening violence. It was previously hard hit by international sanctions and control of the Olympic Committee by Saddam Hussein’s feared son Uday. “Gunmen wearing Iraqi security force uniforms took everyone who was inside the hall,” shop owner Khaled Muhammed, a witness, told Reuters.
“The armed men burst into the room, made everyone lie on the floor and threatened to kill them if they moved,” Hejea’s secretary, Mohammed Al-Habash, told AFP. The gunmen then grabbed Hejea and several others including members of the Facility Protection Service (FPS) who had been guarding the premises. “We know now that they have taken some 20 bodyguards and members of the FPS,” Habash said. The brazen operation raised questions about whether the raid was officially sanctioned.
But Interior Minister Jawad Al-Bolani said “as far as I know, there was no Interior Ministry order or arrest warrant against these people.” In May, 15 members of the national tae kwon do team, all Shiites, were kidnapped as they drove back from a tournament in Jordan through Sunni Anbar province in the restive west of the country. Their fate remains unknown.
Sportsmen have been targets of Iraq’s mounting violence, some apparently by increasingly powerful militants who believe sport is contrary to Islamic values. In May, 15 athletes and officials from the tae kwon do martial arts squad were kidnapped in western Iraq. They have not been heard of since. In Geneva, the International Olympic Committee condemned the kidnappings and called for the release of Hejea and his aides.
Iraq’s Parliament voted for the first time on extending a state of emergency across Iraq, except the largely autonomous northern Kurdish region, for a further 30 days. The motion was passed by a two-thirds majority with no debate. Previously, the prime minister was able to extend the state of emergency, in force since 2004 to tackle a Sunni insurgency against the US-backed government and US forces, but under a new constitution such a move now requires parliament’s approval.
Scores have been killed in tit for tat violence over the past week in Baghdad. In violence overnight, gunmen armed with rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns battled residents in the largely Sunni neighborhood of Fadhil, police said, adding two people were killed and seven wounded in the fighting.
President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, said in a statement Iraq was “in danger of slipping into hateful sectarian strife.” The violence has undermined confidence in Maliki’s new national unity government of Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis and raised questions about the effectiveness of the new Iraqi army being built up to allow US forces to begin withdrawing troops.
Maliki has vowed to disband the militias that now control many of Baghdad’s streets and that analysts say pose the biggest threat to his power. But he faces a difficult task since the most powerful are tied to parties within his own administration.
Iraqi Parliament, meanwhile, voted yesterday to extend the state of emergency for 30 days across most parts of the country, except in the three Kurdish provinces in the north. Baghdad remained volatile yesterday despite a massive security crackdown imposed since June. The residents woke up to sounds of gunfire and explosions as Iraqi security forces carried out raids.
