BAGHDAD (AFP) — Gunmen ambushed a bus near the restive Iraqi city of Baquba on Monday and kidnapped 14 Shiite passengers, a day after 13 members of a family were killed when a train rammed into their car.
Armed men set up a fake checkpoint near the village of Albushaheen in Diyala province and stopped a bus carrying 14 Shiites, police officer Hazim Yassin told AFP from the provincial capital of Baquba.
The gunmen kidnapped all the passengers, including some women and children, he said.
Diyala is one of the most dangerous provinces in Iraq where militants led by Al-Qaeda have continued to carry out brutal attacks despite a US-backed counter-offensive.
On Sunday, a train rammed into a packed car at a makeshift level crossing north of the mainly Shiite central city of Hilla, killing 13 people in the vehicle, including 11 children, a police officer and a medic said.
The accident occurred in an area called Al-Sayahiyah, the police officer said on condition of anonymity.
"Thirteen people from the family of Hamid Hrat were killed when the train rammed into their car," he said, adding that six boys and five girls were among the children.
He said Hrat was a captain in the facility protection service, a security force that guards oil infrastructure and government buildings across Iraq.
A medic from Hilla hospital confirmed receiving the bodies of the victims.
"It was a gruesome accident. The body parts of the dead were brought to the hospital yesterday. All the 13 members were killed instantly," Laith al-Massudi from the hospital told AFP.
Ali Hussein, the manager of Hilla railway station, said the driver slowed the train when he saw the car on the tracks.
"Eyewitnesses said the train slowed down but the breakdown of the car caused the accident," he said, adding an investigation had been launched.
Iraq has a rail network of around 2,300 kilometres (1,430 miles) but only around 1,000 kilometres are operational.
Years of economic sanctions since the 1991 Gulf war combined with the March 2003 invasion have virtually destroyed the rail network.
The main Baghdad station was restored in 2005.
Around 2,000 people, meanwhile, protested in Hilla against the appointment of Major General Fadhil Raddad as the new provincial police chief.
Raddad was appointed after his predecessor Major General Qais al-Mamoori was killed in a bomb attack on December 9.
Residents expressed anger at Raddad's appointment over his alleged links to the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council (SIIC), a Shiite former rebel group that is now a dominant faction in the governing coalition.
Protestors brandished Iraqi flags and banners reading: "Babil needs an independent police chief."
Separately, the US military said its troops detained 10 suspected Al-Qaeda militants in raids in central and northern Iraq on Monday.
Those arrested included a weapons smuggler associated with a foreign "terrorist" network, it added.
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved. More »
