Source:
ReutersBAGHDAD, 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.
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