[wvns] 24 Iranians Escape From Iraqi Prison
24 Iranians, Held for Illegal Entry, Escape From Iraqi Prison
By ALISSA J. RUBIN
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/16/world/middleeast/16iraq.html?
ex=1342238400&en=713d80ff0307ee90&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
Khalid Mohammed/Associated Press
Iraqi firefighters cleaned up the site where a car bomb exploded in
the Karada area of Baghdad Sunday, killing at least five people and
wounding 15. Other estimates put the numbers at 10 dead and 25
wounded.
BAGHDAD, July 15 — The Iraqi police acknowledged Sunday that 24
Iranians who had been detained for entering the country illegally
and using fake passports had escaped from a prison on the Iraqi side
of the porous border.
When the police realized there had been a prison break, they imposed
a curfew on Badra, the town where the prison is, and caught four of
the escapees. But the others remained free, said a police official
in Badra.
Iraq's long border with Iran is exceedingly difficult to police.
American troops have been working to intercept the flow of weapons
and weapons parts that appear to be coming from Iran. Some of the
Iranians who cross the border illegally are pilgrims who have not
obtained legal travel documents for trips to worship in the Shiite
pilgrimage cities of Najaf and Karbala, but Iraqi and American
security officials contend that some Iranians also cross the border
to aid insurgents.
Kidnappings occurred throughout the country on Sunday, documenting
the atmosphere of fear that seems hard to stem despite the increased
number of American troops and a drop in the number of large-scale
attacks.
In Kut, a Shiite area about 70 miles southeast of Baghdad, the wife
of the provincial council leader was killed, along with the couple's
8-year-old son, by gunmen who broke into their house at 6 a.m. and
shot them. The woman died immediately, said a Kut police official.
The child was rushed to the hospital by the police, but died before
they could get there.
In Baghdad, 22 bodies were found around the city, eight of them in
the Wishash neighborhood, a Shiite area. The eight had been tortured
and then shot to death, officials said. The bodies of two women, one
of whom worked for the Social Affairs Ministry, were found in other
locations. In the largely Sunni Adel neighborhood, a gunman killed a
civilian. In Saidiya, the neighborhood where an Iraqi reporter for
The New York Times was killed Friday, gunmen wounded two civilians.
Also in Baghdad, a car bomb exploded at 4 p.m. in a square filled
with takeout and ice cream shops, killing at least five people and
wounding 15, said an Interior Ministry official, who spoke on the
condition of anonymity because he was not an official spokesman.
Other estimates from local hospitals gathered by The Associated
Press put the number of dead at 10 and the wounded at 25.
The American military announced that a soldier had been killed near
Baghdad on Saturday when a roadside bomb exploded near his vehicle.
In Iraqi politics, the Shiite-dominated government appeared to be
trying to reach out to Sunni Arabs, who have complained bitterly
that they are left out of decision making. In the past two weeks the
Parliament has had difficulty mustering a quorum and rarely has had
enough members in the chamber to vote on legislation. Both the Sunni
Arab bloc, and the Shiite members who represent the anti-American
Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, are boycotting the Parliament.
Behind the scenes negotiations have been under way for the past week
in an effort to get both groups to return. On Sunday, Prime Minister
Nuri Kamal al-Maliki met with Adnan Dulaimi, a member of Parliament
and one of the leaders of the largest Sunni Arab bloc to negotiate
an end to the boycott.
They are searching for a way to finesse the resignation of the
speaker, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, a Sunni Arab who has been criticized
both by Sunnis and others in the Parliament. Parliament voted in mid-
June to oust him from the position, but he has resisted resigning
from the post. They also are trying to resolve a dispute over the
culture minister, a Sunni Arab accused of killings. Sunni Arabs
would like an independent investigation of the charges.
In another sign of outreach to Sunnis, the state-run television
station, Al Iraqiya, for the first time covered the story of the
insurgents in the Amiriya neighborhood in western Baghdad, a Sunni
Arab stronghold, who had turned against the militant group that
calls itself Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. The group, a homegrown Sunni
Arab insurgent organization with some foreign participation, had
previously effectively controlled the neighborhood.
The station showed a video featuring a masked man standing by a
newly paved street, saying: "We are the revolutionaries of Amiriya.
We will fight the Qaeda organization until we bring back the old
situation of our district when the Sunnis, Shiites and Christians
lived peacefully together."
Iraqi employees of The New York Times contributed reporting from
Kut, Diyala, Hilla, Kirkuk and Baghdad.
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