Iraq Watch: February 17, 2006

Wealthy Banker Kidnapped in Baghdad

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Ghalib Abdul Hussein Kubba, the director-general of the Basra International Bank, was abducted along with his son from their residence in Baghdad's western upscale Yarmouk neighborhood late Thursday according to authorities. The attackers, dressed in Iraqi special forces uniforms, killed five of the businessman's personal guards during the abduction. The slain guards were left outside in front of the house, each with a single bullet in the head.

Kubba, considered to be one of the wealthiest people in Iraq, has been a well-known and prominent figure in Shiite-dominated southern Iraq for years. He served as head of Basra's chamber of commerce for nearly a decade during the Saddam Hussein reign.

In further violence, gunmen killed two employees of a fashion accessories store in the capital's Maalif district while a cigarette salesman was gunned down in a drive-by shooting in Husseiniyah, located about 20 miles north of Baghdad.

South of the capital in Youssifiyah, an Iraqi policeman died and two were injured in a roadside bombing. Yousifiya is situated in the volatile, religiously mixed area commonly known as the "Triangle of Death."

Also Friday, police discovered the executed bodies of at least six unidentified men in two separate locations in Baghdad. The bodies, which bore signs of torture, were found bound and shot to death. The gruesome find comes a day after Iraq's Interior Ministry, led by Bayan Jabr, announced that it would launch an investigation into accusations that autonomous "death squads" operate within the predominately-Shiite ministry.

Three more civilians were found hanged from a bridge in the restive city of Ramadi, 70 miles west of Baghdad.

Elsewhere, insurgents destroyed a crucial oil pipeline linking the northern oil fields near Kirkuk to a refinery in the southern Baghdad neighborhood of Dora. The blast which damaged the line took place near Taji.