How difficult is it to navigate reconciliation and cement stability in Iraq? This difficult:
Gunmen kidnapped 10 tribal sheiks in Baghdad as the men were heading home Sunday after meetings with Iraqi officials on the nation’s contentious reconciliation process, an Interior Ministry official said.
The sheiks — seven Sunnis and three Shiites — were riding in two vehicles through the capital’s Shaab district, a stronghold of the Mehdi Army, the militia loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
The sheiks were en route to Baquba, in Diyala province, when gunmen in several vehicles stopped their cars and kidnapped them, the official said.
The tribal leaders had just met with an official in Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s office in the Green Zone. Al-Maliki did not attend the meeting, a spokesman said.
It is not clear who staged Sunday’s kidnappings, but it is not the first time insurgents have targeted reconciliation efforts, which are aimed at easing the sectarian tension and violence between Sunnis and Shiites.
Last month, a suicide bomber killed 24 people after attacking a Ramadan breaking-of-the-fast meeting in Diyala that brought together Sunni and Shiite military leaders.
Another report gives some additional details:
The tribal leaders who had joined forces against al-Qaeda in Iraq were abducted Sunday as they were traveling home after a meeting with a government official in Baghdad, AP quoted police and a relative as saying.
The gunmen ambushed the two cars carrying the 10 men in Baghdad’s neighborhood of Shaab at about 3:30 p.m., police officials said.
The sheiks were on their way back to Diyala province after attending a conference with the government’s adviser for tribal affairs to discuss
coordinating efforts against al-Qaeda in Iraq.They were representing a so-called Awakening Council, as the anti-al-Qaeda groups often are known, in the Salam area, due east of Baquba, a former al-Qaeda stronghold.
So they were poised to join forces with the government against Al Qaeda and they were kidnapped. There is no confirmation yet on who snatched them, but there does seem a…possible…motive here (and an organization “of interest”.)
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.