Nine killed, engineer seized in Baghdad ambush (AP) Updated: 2006-01-18 22:03
Gunmen killed at least nine Iraqis and kidnapped a
Malawian engineer on Wednesday in an elaborate ambush on a private security
convoy in a busy Baghdad street, officials and witnesses said.
A Feburary 6, 2005 file photo of an Iraqi
woman walks past the headquarters of the Egyptian based mobile phone
company Iraqna in central Baghdad. Gunmen ambushed a private security team
in Baghdad on Wednesday, killing 10 Iraqi guards and kidnapping a Malawian
engineer working for the Iraqna mobile telephone operator, an Interior
Ministry official said. [Reuters] |
It was the second major insurgent attack in the capital in two days. Late on
Tuesday, gunmen killed seven Iraqis involved in supplying food to the Iraqi
army.
The Malawian engineer and a Madagascan colleague, both employees of the
mobile telephone operator Iraqna, were traveling from home to their office early
on Wednesday when the attackers struck, an Iraqna spokesman told Reuters.
The fate of the Madagascan was not immediately clear.
As their convoy of three or four vehicles drove along the main street in the
Nafaq al-Shurta area, "a large number" of gunmen hiding in buildings opened fire
as other attackers drove out of side streets, an Interior Ministry official
said.
Residents earlier reported that fighters were in Nafaq al-Shurta -- which
literally translates as "Police Tunnel."
Uday Farouq, a passer-by wounded in the leg, told Reuters from his hospital
bed: "I was on my way to work when there was a lot of shooting. I was shot
before I even could run. My uncle was also wounded. I didn't know what had
happened."
A Reuters cameraman counted nine bodies in the hospital morgue.
The Interior Ministry official said 10 security guards had been killed in the
ambush and up to three people kidnapped.
TWO ENGINEERS MISSING
Iraqna, part of the Egyptian-owned Orascom Telecom group, said two of its
engineers were missing.
"We have two engineers who are missing -- one from Malawi and one from
Madagascar," Iraqna spokesman Shamil Hanafi told Reuters. "We still do not know
what has happened to them," he said.
There have been a series of attacks on Iraqna employees in the past. Hanafi
said eight had been kidnapped previously -- six Iraqis and two Egyptian
engineers.
Mobile phones are vital in Iraq because the landline telephone network is
barely operational after years of neglect, sanctions and the U.S-led war in
March 2003 to topple Saddam Hussein.
U.S officials said earlier this week that 7 million Iraqis now had mobile
phones, which were banned under Saddam.
Insurgents have sabotaged efforts to repair Iraq's dilapidated
infrastructure, blowing up power lines and killing or kidnapping engineers as
part of a campaign against the Shi'ite- and Kurdish-led government.
U.S. military officials have said they expect a surge in violence around the
release of the final results of the December 15 parliamentary election, expected
to be published on Friday.
Immediately after Wednesday's attack U.S. and Iraqi forces sealed off the
area. A Reuters cameraman at the scene said that as the troops began withdrawing
he saw an explosion close to several U.S. Humvee armored vehicles.
There were no immediate reports of injuries in what appeared to have been the
detonation of an improvised explosive device.
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