Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

14 Iraqi police officers kidnapped, later found slain

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published March 3, 2007

BAGHDAD - The bodies of 14 police officers were found Friday northeast of Baghdad after an al-Qaida-affiliated Sunni group said it abducted members of a government security force in retaliation for the rape of a Sunni woman by members of the Shiite-dominated police.

The brutal killing occurred in one of the provinces surrounding Baghdad, where violence remains high despite a sharp drop in bombings and sectarian killings in the capital since the start of the U.S.-led security crackdown last month.

Brig. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, an Interior Ministry spokesman, said the bodies were discovered Friday afternoon in Diyala province. The police officers were kidnapped Thursday on their way to their homes in Diyala for leave, he said.

Earlier Friday, the Islamic State of Iraq said in a Web statement that it seized 18 Interior Ministry employees in Diyala in retaliation for "the crimes carried out ... against the Sunnis," including the alleged rape last month of a Sunni woman by policemen in Baghdad.

A 20-year-old woman told Arab television stations that she was detained in a Sunni area of Baghdad on Feb. 18, taken to a police garrison and assaulted by three officers. The woman gave a name that identified her as Sunni.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, announced an investigation Feb. 19 but cleared the officers the next day, stirring outrage among Sunni politicians.

Also Friday:

U.S. DEATHS: Two U.S. soldiers and an interpreter were killed by a roadside bomb northwest of Baghdad as they were trying to clear a highway of explosives. The military also announced that a U.S. Marine was killed two days before in combat in Anbar province, a Sunni insurgent area west of the capital.

OTHER VIOLENCE: Police in the Anbar capital of Ramadi said gunmen shot dead two members of a local soccer club practicing in a public field. In Baghdad, two car bombs killed at least 11 people in attacks Friday. The deadlier occurred at a used car lot near the Shiite militia stronghold of Sadr City, killing 10 people, wounding 17 and setting several cars ablaze, police said.

[Last modified March 3, 2007, 01:25:42]