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Gunmen Kill 10 Security Guards in Iraq

Posted on: Wednesday, 18 January 2006, 06:00 CST

By SAMEER N. YACOUB

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Police said gunmen killed at least 10 security guards and seized an African engineer in an ambush Wednesday in Baghdad. Iraqi authorities, meanwhile, held out hope that a kidnapped American reporter would be released.

The guards were killed when their convoy was attacked by heavily armed insurgents in Baghdad's dangerous western Jami'a district, said Capt. Qassim Hussein. He said another security worker and a civilian were also wounded.

An engineer from Malawi, who was working for the mobile telephone company Iraqna, was abducted during the attack, said a police official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to talk to media.

Earlier Wednesday, two Iraqi journalists were wounded in the same area by gunmen who fired shots at them from a passing car as they drove to work at the al-Iraq newspaper, Hussein added. The reporters were hospitalized.

The bodies of three men, including a relative of Iraq's defense minister, were also found Wednesday with gunshot wounds to the head in a Baghdad apartment, a police official said.

Sadad al-Batah, a Sunni Arab tribal leader related to Defense Minister Saadoun al-Dulaimi, was killed along with his nephew and a third person, who was identified as an Iraqi army officer, said the official, who declined to be identified because of security reasons.

Elsewhere, Iraqi doctors were investigating if a 15-year-old girl who recently died from a lung infection was infected with bird flu, a Health Ministry official said Wednesday.

The girl's family apparently kept chickens in their house in the northeast Iraqi city of Sulaimaniyah, and some of those birds also died, said Dr. Abdul Jalil Naji, who heads the ministry's bird flu office.

A health official in Sulaimaniyah, Sherko Abdellah, said an initial autopsy found no evidence of bird flu in the girl but blood samples have been sent to Jordan for more tests. Officials were also on the way to Sulaimaniyah to investigate.

Turkey, which borders Iraq to the north, is battling an outbreak of the deadly H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus, with 21 confirmed human cases. Sulaimaniyah is more than 120 miles from the Turkish border.

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization has warned that bird flu might already have spread from Turkey to neighboring countries, including Iraq. There have been no confirmed human cases so far in Iraq.

Police are also working to secure the release of kidnapped American journalist Jill Carroll, who was seen in a tape aired on an Arab TV station late Tuesday for the first time since her Jan. 7 abduction in Baghdad.

Al-Jazeera said the tape, a silent 20-second video showing Carroll appearing pale and tired, also included a threat to kill the 28-year-old freelance writer in 72 hours if U.S. authorities didn't release all Iraqi women in military custody.

U.S. military spokeswoman Sgt. Stacy Simon said eight Iraqi women are currently detained, but provided no further details.

Carroll, working for the Christian Science Monitor newspaper, was abducted in one of Baghdad's most dangerous neighborhoods as she was being driven to meet a Sunni Arab politician, who failed to appear for the interview. Carroll's translator was killed.

On the tape, Carroll is wearing a white-colored pullover, while her long, straight, brown hair is parted in the middle and pulled back from her face as she speaks into the camera. Al-Jazeera would not tell The Associated Press how it received the tape, but the station issued its own statement calling for Carroll's release.

A still photograph of Carroll from the videotape appeared on Al-Jazeera's Web site carrying a logo reading "The Revenge Brigade," a group that was not previously known from other claims of responsibility of violence in Iraq.

The U.S. Embassy said a joint American-Iraqi investigation is underway to try find Carroll.

"Efforts are continuing to find the American journalist," said Gen. Hussein Kamal, the deputy interior minister in charge of domestic intelligence. "We cannot say more because of the sensitivity of the matter, but God willing the end will be positive."

The Christian Science Monitor said Carroll arrived in Iraq in 2003 and began filing stories for the newspaper early last year.

The paper released a statement from her family pleading with her captors to set her free.

"Jill is a friend and sister to many Iraqis and has been dedicated to bringing the truth of the Iraq war to the world," it said. "We appeal for the speedy and safe return of our beloved daughter and sister."

Source: Associated Press/AP Online

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