US, Iraqi forces seek kidnapped Britons (conducted raids overnight)

[maddezmom]

Source: Reuters

BAGHDAD, May 30 (Reuters) - U.S. and Iraqi troops raided Baghdad neighbourhoods overnight in a hunt for five Britons who were kidnapped from a government building in an audacious daylight raid by dozens of gunmen, police and residents said.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari said the Shi'ite Mehdi Army militia, which has infiltrated Interior Ministry forces, was probably behind the abductions, which took place despite a major crackdown by U.S. and Iraqi troops in Baghdad.

"There are suspicions that it may be the Mehdi Army because the location of the (kidnapping) is in their theatre of operations," he told Reuters in an interview.

Interior Ministry spokesman Brigadier-General Abdul-Kareem Khalaf dismissed suggestions that the kidnappers, who were dressed in police commando camouflage uniforms and driving official vehicles, were a renegade unit from his ministry.

A government employee who witnessed the kidnappings also gave new details of the well-planned operation and told how two other Westerners had narrowly escaped being taken by the gunmen who rushed into the Finance Ministry building.

Read more: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/COL021520.htm

[maddezmom]

1. US can't confirm it was involved in the raids?

~snip~

The kidnappings challenge a major security crackdown in the capital by U.S. and Iraqi troops. The troops are trying to stabilise Baghdad, epicentre of sectarian violence, but bombings, shootings and kidnappings continue.

Residents of Sadr City told of being awoken in the early hours of Wednesday as U.S. armoured vehicles smashed their way into at least seven houses, demolishing walls to make way for troops who stormed in behind them.

"I was asleep when I heard them shout 'Go!' and they drove into my home bringing down the wall. They started beating us and telling us to bring out the four Britons ... We said we didn't have them, but they tied our hands outside and put the women together in one room," Sadr city resident Abu Ali told Reuters.

The unusually heavy-handed tactics suggested the troops are racing to find the missing men.

The U.S. military said it could not confirm the involvement of its soldiers in the search operation.

more;http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/COL042756.htm

[gratuitous]

2. Tell me again how we're different from the Gestapo?

Because when I read these accounts, my feeble little brain just flies to the stories of heavily-armed bully boys in the Third Reich, breaking down doors and rousting the residents in the early morning hours. I also think of the Stasi and Stalin's secret police. But we're oh-so-much better and gooder than those miscreants. Besides, we're looking for "kidnapped" soldiers (don't you dare call them prisoners of war), so we have to use every crude means at our disposal because our enemies are animals. Animals, I tell you! They! Them! They're the animals, so we have to blast through the walls of their houses, bind them, and beat them. They don't understand anything else.