Secret Squirrel
05-15-2005, 11:45 AM
The bodies of 13 blindfolded and bound men were found shot multiple times in the head in Baghdad on Sunday, while 11 others killed in a similar fashion were discovered in a deserted chicken farm south of the capital, police said.
The grisly discoveries came as Secretary of State of Condoleezza Rice made a surprise visit to Iraq, a day after the U.S. military announced it had successfully wrapped up a major offensive in a remote desert region near the Syrian border aimed at followers of Iraq’s most-wanted terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
With the U.S. operation ended, gunmen freed the kidnapped governor of Iraq’s western Anbar province, relatives and a government official said.
Gov. Raja Nawaf Farhan al-Mahalawi was seized Tuesday as he drove from Qaim, near the Syrian border, to the provincial capital of Ramadi. The kidnappers later called his family and said they would hold him until U.S. forces pull out of the border town, about 200 miles west of Baghdad.
They also offered to exchange the governor for three of al-Zarqawi’s supporters, who they said were seized in the U.S. offensive, according to the family....
link (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7824952/)
The grisly discoveries came as Secretary of State of Condoleezza Rice made a surprise visit to Iraq, a day after the U.S. military announced it had successfully wrapped up a major offensive in a remote desert region near the Syrian border aimed at followers of Iraq’s most-wanted terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
With the U.S. operation ended, gunmen freed the kidnapped governor of Iraq’s western Anbar province, relatives and a government official said.
Gov. Raja Nawaf Farhan al-Mahalawi was seized Tuesday as he drove from Qaim, near the Syrian border, to the provincial capital of Ramadi. The kidnappers later called his family and said they would hold him until U.S. forces pull out of the border town, about 200 miles west of Baghdad.
They also offered to exchange the governor for three of al-Zarqawi’s supporters, who they said were seized in the U.S. offensive, according to the family....
link (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7824952/)