Bus passengers abducted north of Baghdad

BAGHDAD – Gunmen stopped a minibus driving north of Baghdad on Monday and abducted 13 Iraqi civilians inside, Iraqi police reported. The mass kidnapping was a renewed case of a tactic that has grown increasingly rare as violence has ebbed in Iraq.

The gunmen had set up a checkpoint Monday morning along a road north of Baqouba, the capital of Diyala province, before seizing the Shiite civilians in the bus, according to Maj. Gen. Abdul Kareem al-Rubaie, a police officer in Diyala. He said the passengers were traveling from the town of Khalis to Baqouba and were probably taken to a location within Diyala province.

Rubaie said he believed the Sunni insurgent group Al-Qaida in Iraq was responsible for kidnapping the group, which included women and children.

In a separate development Monday south of Baghdad, hundreds of people in Babil province staged a protest over the appointment of a new police chief for Hilla, the provincial capital. The demonstrators were angry because they believe the new chief, Maj. Gen. Fadhil Radam Kadim al-Sultani, is affiliated with the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, a leading Shiite political party, whose militia, the Badr Organization, is involved in a power struggle in southern Iraq with another pervasive militia, the Mahdi Army.

Protesters set up tents along the road to the governor’s office in Hilla, chanted denunciations of Sultani and held signs calling for appointment of an independent police chief, said Capt. Muthanna Ahmed, a spokesman for the Babil police. Officials close to Muqtada al-Sadr, leader of the Mahdi Army, called Sultani’s appointment illegal.

Sultani, who served as Hilla police chief earlier in the war, denied in a statement that he was affiliated with any political party. He was chosen by the Interior Ministry and the provincial council, following the assassination of Maj. Gen. Qais al-Mamouri, this month, Ahmed said.

Also Monday, a car bomb exploded near the Green Zone in central Baghdad, killing two people and wounding at least five, according to Iraqi police. The bomb detonated near the office of the governor of Baghdad province.