Iraqi security forces launched an operation yesterday to kill or capture an insurgent gang that kidnapped 14 policemen and slit their throats, the interior ministry said.
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 US-led security crackdown last month.
Ministry operations director Brigadier General Abdel Karim Khalaf said, "The minister is following this case closely and has given the order to hunt these people down and punish them. The police chief in Baquba has collected intelligence information, and the operation is under way."
PHOTO: AFP
On Thursday around 55 members of the Iraq's Shiite-led interior ministry forces were travelling from Baquba to the nearby town of Khalis to go on leave when they were ambushed by Sunni insurgents.
The gang managed to capture 14 of them, Khalaf said.
Shortly afterwards, a coalition of insurgent groups led by al-Qaeda said in an Internet message that the hostages would be killed to avenge the alleged rape of a Baghdad Sunni woman by Shiite police.
Late on Friday, a second message said the killings had been carried out and promised that a video of the murders would be released.
Khalaf dismissed the idea that the men had been killed in response to the alleged rape as propaganda from a group already locked in war with security forces, and expressed optimism that the killers would be caught.
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.
In a second statement, the group announced that its ``court'' had ordered the ``execution'' of the men and that a video depicting their deaths would be posted later, according to the SITE Institute, which monitors extremist Web sites.
Also Friday, two US 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 US Marine was killed two days before in combat in Anbar province, a Sunni insurgent area west of the capital.
Police in the Anbar capital of Ramadi said gunmen shot dead two members of a local soccer club practicing in a public field. The account could not be independently confirmed and reports from Ramadi police are often wrong.
But it's clear civilians are facing increasing risks in the Sunni-dominated areas west of Baghdad, where insurgents have turned their killing power on those who have stood against them. Last week, a truck bomb killed more than 50 people leaving a mosque near Ramadi after the imam had preached against groups such as al-Qaeda in Iraq.
In the hostage-taking, the Islamic State of Iraq had threatened to kill the captives within 24 hours if the Iraqi government did not hand over officers accused in the rape case, and release all Sunni women held in Iraqi prisons.
``This blessed operation is a response to crimes carried out by those infidels in their fight against the Sunnis,'' the statement said. ``The latest of the crimes committed by these traitors was to rape our sister in religion.''
A 20-year-old woman told Arab television stations that she was detained in a Sunni area of west Baghdad on Feb. 18, taken to a police garrison and assaulted by three officers. The woman gave a name which identified her as Sunni.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, announced an investigation Feb. 19 but cleared the officers the following day, stirring outrage among Sunni politicians.
Al-Maliki said the rape claim was fabricated to tarnish the reputation of the police and the ongoing security crackdown in Baghdad.
Friday's statement from the Islamic State of Iraq referred to the rape victim by her name and identified her as Sunni.
However, officials of the Iraqi Islamic Party, the country's largest Sunni group, said the woman used a false name and that she is in fact a Shiite. The party's human rights office had been looking into the case.
Names of the officers involved in the case were not released, and it was unknown whether they were Sunni or Shiite.
In Baghdad, two car bombs killed at least 11 people in attacks on 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.
The other blast was near a police patrol in southwest Baghdad, killing a policeman and wounding two civilians, police reported.
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