Police commanders arrested following mass kidnapping at government building

BAGHDAD, Nov. 14 — Several dozen employees of a university office were kidnapped here today, in a methodical daylight raid that prompted the minister of higher education to berate Parliament and threaten to shut the nation’s universities until security improves.

Estimates of the number of kidnapped varied widely, with a spokesman for the Ministry of the Interior putting the number between 30 and 40 and the department of higher education saying that between 70 and 150 men were missing. An interior ministry spokesman said that he did not think the number of vehicles reportedly involved could have carried off both the gunmen — by some counts, as many as 80 took part — and the number of victims described by education officials.

A few hours after the incident, a spokesman for the interior ministry went on national television to report that arrest warrants had been issued for five senior police commanders with responsibilities in the area. It was not clear whether the arrests were for possible complicity or for negligence; the spokesman described the kidnappers as “criminal groups,” according to news services.

The police reported that three of the victims were later released at a hospital, bound and gagged but otherwise unharmed.

The victims were taken from an office of the department of higher education that handles scholarships and cultural relations, officials said.

Academics have recently been frequent targets in the country’s continuing violence, along with members of other professional groups, like doctors and nurses. In the space of week in October, a geology professor who was a member of a Sunni party was gunned down and the dean of Baghdad University’s economics department, a Shiite, was slain along with his family. Such killings have contributed to the growing exodus of highly educated Iraqis described in a United Nations report last month.

Sunnis have long charged that the Shiite-dominated security forces have been responsible for mass abductions and sectarian killings. In recent weeks, American officials have stepped up pressure on Iraq’s Shiite-led government to weed out militia members or those suspected of links to death squads.

A month ago, the Interior Minister, Jawad al-Bolani, suspended an entire police brigade after some of its leaders were linked to a mass abduction of workers at a frozen food factory. In that incident, 26 workers were taken and the bodies of 10 were found soon after.

Witnesses said today’s raid was carried out by as many as 80 men wearing the commando uniforms of the Interior Ministry forces. But the identity of kidnappers is often hard to pin down, as insurgents and criminal gangs often don counterfeit versions of official uniforms.

The gunmen, who stormed into the building at about 10:15 this morning, told employees that they were “clearing the way” for a the American ambassador, who would soon be traveling down the road outside, said Basil al-Khateeb, a spokesman for the ministry of higher education.

As they worked through the institute rounding up everyone inside, they separated out the women, eventually locking them in a room, before loading the men into sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks and driving off, Mr. Khateeb said. Some of those taken were employees of the research and engineering departments, while others were civilians who just happened to be there.

Witnesses quoted by news services said that the gunmen confiscated cellphones in what appeared to be a tightly planned, highly coordinated operation that lasted 15 or 20 minutes. Video taken at the scene showed telephones ripped from desks but no other signs of ransacking.

Reuters quoted one witness who said the kidnappers checked the identity cards of the men taken from the building and released those who were Shiite, but Iraqi officials said that members of both sects were among the victims.

While the minister of higher education, Abed Salam Thiab, is a Sunni, the university system has a mixed Sunni-Shiite workforce.

As news of the raid spread, Mr. Thiab went to the Parliament building and angrily interrupted a nationally televised session to denounce lawmakers for failing to prevent what he called “a terrorist act.” He said universities would be shut until the situation becomes safer.

“I have no other choice,” he said, according to The Associated Press.

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Up to 150 People Kidnapped in Baghdad

BAGHDAD, Nov. 14 -- Armed men in Iraqi police uniforms and driving police vehicles kidnapped as many as 150 people from a government agency on Tuesday, and arrest warrants have been issued for several senior police commanders in connection with the abductions, Iraqi officials said today.

The abductions were a well-orchestrated reminder of how challenging basic security remains in Iraq at a time when U.S. officials are pressing the local government to assert more control.

News of the mass kidnapping was announced dramatically on the floor of the national Parliament, and within hours an Iraqi Interior Ministry spokesman said on national television that orders had been issued for the apprehension of several police officials in charge of the area where the kidnappings occurred.

Minister of Higher Education Abel Thiyab promptly suspended classes at all universities, fearing that more professors or students could be targeted. He told parliament that he had repeatedly asked for more security to protect Iraq's academic institutions but his request was not fulfilled.

"We strongly condemn this act because it is a savage terrorist action," said Thiyab. "This contradicts the sense of credibility in the new Iraq."

Amid continued fear of death squads and violence targeted against academics in particular, the incident Tuesday represents both the largest mass abduction since the U.S.-led invasion and a blow to efforts to keep members of Iraq's trained middle class from fleeing the country. Last month, within the same week, gunmen assassinated a Sunni professor and the Shiite dean of Baghdad's economic department.

Ala'a Maki, a Sunni politician who heads the parliament's education committee, interrupted a parliamentary session and branded the abductions a "national catastrophe."

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