Special
report:Tension escalates in
Iraq
BAGHDAD, Nov. 15 (Xinhua) -- Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki
pledged Wednesday to arrest all those carried out kidnappings in Baghdad within
the "open battle with terrorists."
"We feel sorry to what happened yesterday, but I
pledge that we will trail those who put their hands in the hands of the devil,"
Maliki told a gathering at a Baghdad university.
"This is an open battle with terrorists whatever
their names are," Maliki said during his visit to the university after mass
abduction of the Higher Education Ministry employees on Tuesday.
The state-run television reported Tuesday that gunmen
wearing Iraqi police commando uniform stormed the ministry's Research
Directorate building in the Nidhal Street in Karradah district, kidnapping
scores of male employees.
"It is not enough for us to release some captives,
but also we are keen to bring those kidnappers to justice," he said.
Maliki also said that he rejects any sectarian and
political activities in the Iraqi universities.
The Iraqi Higher Education Minister, Abed Thiyab
al-Ajili, said Tuesday that the number of hostages was more than 100, including
male employees and visitors.
However, the Interior Ministry sources said the
number of hostages in the hands of the kidnappers was exaggerated.
Late Tuesday, at least 15 hostages of the mass
kidnapping were released, local security and education sources said.
According to the released hostages, there were only
some 40 people had been held hostages by the unidentified gunmen.
Iraqi official says most hostages released
Special report:Tension escalates in
Iraq
BEIJING,
Nov. 15 (Xinhuanet) -- Officials still don't have a clear count of how many
Iraqis were kidnapped on Tuesday by up to 80 gunmen disguised as Iraqi National
Police from a Baghdad research institute, but an Interior Minstry official on
Wednesday said most have been released, according to a CNN report.
The official's statement was reinforced by a
Al-Iraqiya station television report that also said most of the hostages had
been released. The official said none of the hostages had been killed or
tortured. Initial estimates were that 100 to 150 people were abducted, but that
figure was reduced later.
Higher Education Minister Abed Dhiyab al-Ajili, who
personally reported the abduction to the Iraq Parliament shortly after it took
place on Tuesday, has closed the nation's universities until security measures
can be improved.
"I have no choice but to stop the teaching in the
universities in Baghdad," he said. "I am not ready to see more professors get
killed."
The hostages included research employees, directors,
managers, cleaning workers and citizens visiting the institute, al-Ajili
said.
The Iraqi interior minister ordered the arrests and
interrogations of several high-ranking police officers over their handling of
security in the area.
One witness told a Reuters representative he saw the
gunmen check identity cards and pick out Sunni employees, including a man "who
was just delivering tea."
"At the same time, I saw two police patrols watching,
doing nothing," Reuters quoted the man as saying.
Al-Ajili said there are about 20 guards at the
institute with a handful of weapons, but not enough to resist a large number of
heavily armed gunmen.
Al-Ajili said the kidnappers surrounded the
four-story building along Nidhal Street with at least 20 vehicles, taking
guards, employees and civilians captive.
According to al-Ajili, the gunmen separated the men
from the women and locked the women in a room while they loaded the men into
vehicles and escaped.
Ashraf Qazi, the U.N. secretary-general's special
representative in Iraq, said the kidnapping was "a nefarious crime that
could dangerously and negatively" affect "progress and development in Iraq, a
country long known for its literary and scientific tradition."
Qazi urged Iraqi officials "to immediately and
inexorably pursue those responsible, free the abductees and ensure the sanctity
of higher education."
(Agencies)
Mass
kidnap by gunmen in Baghdad
BEIJING, Nov. 15 -- Gunmen wearing uniforms of the
Iraqi police commando units have rounded up dozens of men at a government
building in central Baghdad. They then drove off. This may be the biggest mass
kidnapping in a city increasingly used to such violence.
Police and eyewitnesses say gunmen arrived in new
pick-up vehicles and stormed the Research Directorate building of the Higher
Education Ministry in Karrada, a religiously mixed neighborhood.
The head of the parliament's education committee
interrupted lawmakers to say between 100 and 150 people, both Shiites and Sunnis
had been abducted.
Alaa Makki, head of Parliamentary education committee
said, "A group of terrorists in a military uniform said they were from the
Commission on Public Integrity to combat government corruption and that they had
lists of wanted people, so they kidnapped all the men they found there. They
kidnapped Deputy Director Generals, all employees, assistants and cleaners,
leaving nobody behind."
Makki urged the prime minister and ministers of
interior and defense to respond rapidly. The higher education minister
immediately ordered all universities closed until security improvements are
made.
The minister is a member of the main Sunni Arab
political bloc. Most ministries have become fiefdoms of particular parties.
The abductions appear to be the boldest in a series
of killings and other attacks on Iraqi academics. The violence is driving
thousands of professors and researchers to flee to neighboring countries.
(Source: CCTV)
Gunmen kidnap up to 100 employees from gov't
building
BAGHDAD, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- Gunmen kidnapped some
100 people working for the Higher Education Ministry in Baghdad on Tuesday, the
state-run television reported.
Gunmen wearing Iraqi police commando uniform stormed
the ministry's Research Directorate building in the Nidhal Street in Karradah
district, kidnapping more than 100 male employees, the television said.
Thiyab al-Ajili, minister of the ministry, also
confirmed the incident.
Women employees were separated from the men and
locked in a room after having their mobile phones confiscated by the gunmen, the
report said.
Earlier, an Interior Ministry source said that up to
25 employees were kidnapped from the building.
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