Eight Iraqis killed in attack on minibus, 15 athletes kidnapped Canadian Press
BAGHDAD (AP) - Gunmen stopped a minibus and killed all eight Iraqis aboard it in Baghdad on Thursday, and 15 athletes were kidnapped in western Iraq while driving to a training camp in neighbouring Jordan, police said.
The victims of the Baghdad attack were seven car mechanics heading to work and their minibus driver. The gunmen ordered all of them off the vehicle in a remote area of southwestern Baghdad and shot them, said police 1st Lt. Maithem Abde-Razaq.
The kidnapping of the 15 taekwondo athletes occurred Wednesday on a road between the cities of Fallujah and Ramadi, one of the most violent areas of Iraq. They were members of a private sports club that hopes to one day send athletes to the Olympics.
Taekwondo is a Korean martial art popular in many parts of the world.
“We are negotiating with the kidnappers who are demanding $100,000 in ransom. We are doing our best to ensure their release,” said Jamal Abdel-Karim, an official with the Iraqi Olympic Committee, which oversees professional and amateur sports teams.
In Mosul, 360 kilometres northwest of Baghdad, Iraqi and U.S. forces killed three insurgents and wounded 10 in two separate gun battles Wednesday, the U.S. command said.
The first occurred when U.S. forces caught insurgents burying a roadside bomb, the military said. After a gun battle, the insurgents fled the area in several vehicles, and American soldiers later found nine of them wounded in a local hospital. All of them were detained.
One Iraqi civilian also was wounded in the fighting, the U.S. command said.
In the second fight, insurgents in two separate cars opened fire on a civilian vehicle on a highway outside of Mosul, wounding all three Iraqis aboard, the military said. U.S. forces patrolling nearby opened fired at one of the insurgent cars, killing all three of its occupants, the command said.
The militants in the other car tried to flee on foot, but police captured one of them. He had been wounded in the gunfire exchange.
© The Canadian Press 2006