Amid a Kidnapping, Silence

BAGHDAD — Everyone stayed quiet.

The gunmen ordered witnesses to stand aside and remain still Saturday afternoon as they dragged the shopkeeper known as Abu Ammar away. The victim didn't say a word, though he squirmed and tried to break free.

"Stay where you are," one of the gunmen, a cleanshaven man in his 20s wearing a black bulletproof vest and holding an assault rifle, quietly told the frozen passersby. "Don't move."

The eight plainclothes kidnappers didn't even raise their voices when one of them smashed the shopkeeper's bespectacled face with the butt of an assault rifle. They shooed away a shop employee beseeching them to take along a small plastic bag, possibly filled with the 50-ish victim's medicines, stuffed him into one of two white sport utility vehicles without license plates and drove away from the Colors stationery shop.

Drivers watching from their cars turned their heads and continued on their way. Pedestrians took hold of their loved ones and proceeded with their errands.

It was business as usual in Iraq, where at least 81 people were killed or found slain Saturday around the country.

Read the rest at the LA Times

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