Gunmen Free Kidnapped Iraqi Deputy Minister
Julie Farby - All Headline News Staff Writer Baghdad, Iraq (AHN) - Gunmen pulled the deputy electricity minister from his car in a busy Baghdad street on Tuesday, briefly kidnapping him and 19 bodyguards in an attack that underscored the vulnerability of Iraq's new government. Interior Ministry sources say Raad al-Harith was released with seven of his bodyguards 12 hours after he was abducted by men wearing camouflage uniforms, who stopped his convoy in eastern Baghdad, but no further details were given. It was the second abduction of a politician in three days in Baghdad as Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's new national unity government struggles to show Iraqis that it is coming to grips with the relentless insurgent and sectarian violence. According to the Reuters report, the kidnapping of Harith came three days after gunmen kidnapped Sunni legislator Taiseer Najah al-Mashhadani and seven of her bodyguards in a northern district bordering Sadr City. The communal bloodshed has increasingly overshadowed the three-year-old Sunni insurgency, and Maliki has sought to tackle both in a national reconciliation plan unveiled last week. Maliki has offered to speak to rebels who do not have blood on their hands, but not to Saddam Hussein loyalists or al-Qaeda militants, whom he has vowed to crush. Meanwhile, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad confirmed that talks between some rebel groups and both |
