Iraqi official: 80 hostages still held

By SAMEER N. YACOUB, Associated Press Writer
2 hours, 14 minutes ago

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq's higher education minister said Thursday that as many as 80 victims from a mass kidnapping earlier this week remain in captivity, and that some of the 70 who have been freed were tortured.

On Tuesday, gunmen disguised in the blue camouflage uniforms of police commandos raided the Higher Education Ministry in Karradah, a primarily Shiite area of downtown Baghdad, handcuffed scores of people and took them away in about 20 pickup trucks.

Government officials have given varying numbers on how many people were abducted, ranging from a high of about 150 to a low of 40 to 50. They also have conflicted on how many captives have been freed, raising skepticism about the scope of the abduction as well as how the victims were treated.

Higher Education Minister Abed Theyab said 70 of 150 hostages were released, reaffirming a figure given Wednesday and saying those freed "were tortured and suffered a lot."

But National Security Adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie issued a statement that contradicted Theyab and claimed only 50 people total were kidnapped, all were released and nobody was killed.

The assault was widely believed to have been the work of the Mahdi Army, the heavily armed militia of anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, and it raised questions about Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's commitment to wipe out the Shiite militias of his prime political backers: the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq and al-Sadr's Sadrist Movement. >>>>cont

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