Ex-Iraqi minister escapes from Baghdad prison

Peaceful protest
Red Crescent workers held a peaceful demonstration outside their Baghdad office to demand the release of the remaining captives.

The Defense Ministry said those responsible for the Red Crescent kidnappings were likely “the same groups” responsible for similar attacks in recent months.

“They aim at paralyzing life and stopping government and social life,” spokesman Mohammed al-Askari told reporters. “Targeting the Red Crescent is a horrible act.”

Many international aid organizations closed their operations in Iraq as the security situation deteriorated after the U.S.-led invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein.

At least half a dozen mass kidnappings have been carried out in the Iraqi capital this year, possibly by armed groups linked to the sectarian conflict between Sunnis and Shiites.

U.K. inquest cites body armor
A British tank commander accidentally shot by one of his own soldiers as he struggled with an Iraqi attacker died because of an “unforgivable and inexcusable” delay in providing body armor to British troops, a coroner ruled Monday.

Sgt. Steve Roberts, a commander in the Royal Tank Regiment, died after he was attacked while manning a checkpoint outside the southern Iraqi city of Az Zubayr in the early hours of March 24, 2003.

An army inquiry found that when he tried to shoot the Iraqi, his Browning pistol failed and he was shot by a British soldier in a nearby tank who was trying to protect him but did not know his high-powered machine gun was inaccurate at short range.

The inquest heard Roberts was left exposed by “serious failings” in the army’s ability to supply its troops, noting that he gave up his body armor three days before his death.

Had he been wearing the armor he would have survived, the inquest heard.

In other incidents:

• Four bodies were found blindfolded, handcuffed and shot execution-style off a highway in western Baghdad. Two roadside bombs killed one person and wounded seven others during the morning rush hour, and two mortar shells killed one person and wounded two others, police said. A sniper killed a guard at the gate of the University of Technology, they said.
• In Mosul, police found two bodies, and gunmen shot and killed a civilian.
• In Diyala province east of Baghdad, police said gunmen killed two civilians and wounded another. A roadside bomb killed an Iraqi soldier and wounded another, and a mortar round killed one villager and wounded 12 others.
• In northern Iraq, a Sunni Arab member of the Nineveh provincial council, Khairi al-Dabagh, was shot and killed on his way to work in Mosul, police said.

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