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Iraq: Gunmen lay siege to Shiite Kurd
town, killing at least 13
20.6.2007
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June
20, 2007
BAGHDAD, ---- Gunmen dressed in Iraqi police
and military uniforms attacked a village of Shiite
Kurds northeast of Baghdad early Saturday, killing
at least 13 residents and setting fire to houses,
Iraqi police officials and a Kurdish political party
said.
Police said they believed the attackers were members
of the Islamic State of Iraq, a radical Sunni Arab
umbrella organization with links to the insurgent
group al-Qaeda in Iraq.
The attack occurred in Hamid Shifi, a hamlet about
60 miles northeast of Baghdad, just south of the
town of Mandali near the border with Iran, police
said.
The gunmen entered the town in two pickup trucks and
on two motorcycles, according to a statement on the
Web site of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK),
a leading Kurdish political party. Under the guise
of conducting a military raid, they gathered
villagers, separated the men from the women and
opened fire on the men, the statement said.
Police said 13 people were killed and 12 were
wounded; the PUK reported 15 dead and one wounded.
Diyala province police Lt. Mohammed Hakman said the
gunmen set fire to 30 houses. A police official in
Baghdad, who was not authorized to speak on the
record, said Iraqi security forces arrived on the
scene and chased the men, killing four and wounding
16.
The Islamic State of Iraq has said it is holding
three U.S. soldiers who were abducted May 12 when
insurgents attacked their lookout position south of
Baghdad, but the group has offered no proof. Four
U.S. soldiers and an Iraqi interpreter were killed
in the ambush.
About 4,000 U.S. and 2,000 Iraqi soldiers have been
searching for the missing soldiers for the past
week. Early Saturday, U.S. forces "detained nine
individuals suspected of involvement in the
kidnappings" in Amiriyah, a Sunni stronghold on the
Euphrates River about 30 miles southwest of Baghdad,
the military said in a statement. The town is about
25 miles from where the soldiers were ambushed. No
other information was available.
The villagers of Hamid Shifi were among more than 60
Iraqis killed Saturday in suicide attacks, roadside
bombings, mortar strikes and other violence across
Iraq. Police also said 21 unidentified bodies were
discovered in the capital, many bearing signs of
torture.
The U.S. military reported the deaths of five
American soldiers. One soldier was killed by a
roadside bomb south of Baghdad on Saturday. The
others were killed Friday: two in an incident
involving a roadside bomb and small-arms fire in
northwest Baghdad, one in small-arms fire south of
the capital, and one during combat operations in the
western province of Anbar.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair made an
unannounced visit to the country Saturday, stopping
in Baghdad to encourage government efforts at
political and religious reconciliation and then
flying to Basra, Iraq's gateway to the Persian Gulf
and the main base for British troops in the country.
There he warned about the turbulence in the Middle
East. "If we don't sort this region out, then there
is, in my view, a very troubled and difficult future
for the world ahead of us," he said.
It was Blair's seventh visit to Iraq and probably
his last before he steps down as prime minister next
month, according to a British Embassy spokeswoman,
who under embassy rules was not allowed to be quoted
by name. She said Blair flew to Iraq directly from
Washington, where he met last week with President
Bush.
Blair, a staunch backer of the war in Iraq, has come
under harsh criticism in Britain for his unflinching
alliance with Bush, particularly as the war has
worsened.
Speaking to reporters in Baghdad after a 45-minute
meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki
and President Jalal Talabani, Blair said, "I have no
regrets about removing Saddam, no."
"Iraq was liberated from the terrible dictatorship
of Saddam, and now there are attempts to oppress it
in a different ways, with terrorism and violence,"
he said.
washingtonpost com
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