BAGHDAD - 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.

Later in the day, the government-run television station reported that Iraq’s universities would remain open, and Mr. Thiab told Reuters that it was being left up to staff members whether to stay away from work.

Alaa Makki, the head of Parliament’s education committee, told the session that the gunmen carried lists of those to be taken and claimed to be on a mission for the government’s anti-corruption unit, the A.P. reported. He that the kidnapped included the deputy director of the institute, which is responsible for granting scholarships to Iraqi professors and students wishing to study abroad.

One eyewitness said that the kidnappers arrived in about 30 cars and trucks that appeared to be government vehicles but did not have license plates. They closed off roads around the office in the Karrada section of central Baghdad, a middle-class area that has been regarded as relatively safe. “Then after a short time, we heard some shouting and shooting,” the witness said.
He said the gunmen led men out of the building, beating some before loading them into the vehicles, including one man who tried to convince them he was just on his way to a hospital, but who was discovered to be carrying a file from the institute.

According to the witness, a police officer from a nearby checkpoint told bystanders to leave, but said he and his colleagues were powerless to stop the raid. “Maybe the order came from a higher level,” the officer said.

Dr. Saleem Abdullah, a spokesman for the Sunni Accordance Front, the largest Sunni party, denounced the kidnapping as a “catastrophe” and demanded swift government action.

He derided the idea that the abductions could have been the work of criminals in counterfeit uniforms, saying, “If the uniforms are justified by saying they are available, what about the cars?”

He said that he hoped the universities would not have to stay shut, saying, “this would facilitate the mission of the saboteurs.”

In other violence today, a car bomb in a Baghdad market killed 10 people and wounded 25, while mortar fire killed four people in the Hussainiya neighborhood and a roadside bomb in a parking lot killed two passersby and wounded eight, Interior Ministry officials said.

Overnight, six people died and at least 15 were wounded in clashes between American forces and the Mahdi Army, a Shiite militia, in the Shula section of northwestern Baghdad, the Ministry of Interior announced today. News services said that angry Shiites marched through the neighborhood’s streets this morning to protest the raid.

Also today, Syria’s official paper reported that the government is open to talks with the United States on stabilizing Iraq and the region, according to Agence France-Presse.

But the article questioned whether the position of the Bush administration had changed “to correct the errors committed” in the past.

“American, European, Japanese and Russian delegations have all said that Washington’s attitude of not talking to Syria was a mistake,” the article said.

On Monday, British Prime Minister Tony Blair called for talks with Iran and Syria to find ways to ease the conflict within Iraq and prevent it from spreading through the region, if they adopted a constructive approach. President Bush later reiterated his position that talks with those countries could only come after they give up what Washington sees as their support of terrorism.

Source: New York Times