BAGHDAD - Iraqi and US troops hunting alleged kidnappers raided the health ministry Sunday, arresting five suspects. ‘Acting on an Iraqi citizen’s tip regarding kidnap victims, Iraqi forces with US advisers searched the Ministry of Health at about 2:30 am and detained five for further questioning,’ an official from the US-led coalition said.Following the raid, health workers mounted a small non-violent anti-American protest outside the ministry, to demand the release of the detainees, whom an official described as bodyguards to the minister, Ali al-Shamari.
Senior health ministry official Hakim al-Zamli said US and Iraqi troops arrived in the early hours and had captured seven suspects. He told AFP the troops had taken 50 million dinars (38,000 dollars) in cash. Zamli said health workers had gone on strike in protest at the raid, but that emergency health services would be maintained. ‘Our demands are the release of the detainees, a promise not to raid the ministry, compensation for the damages and an official apology,’ he told AFP.
But the coalition official, speaking on condition of anonymity because an official statement on the raid was being prepared, said the raid was carried out after Iraqi forces received information relating to a kidnapping. ‘It is for the benefit of the Iraqi people that these forces conducted the search and detained the suspects for further questioning,’ he said.
IraqÂ’s ministries are controlled by rival factions within the countryÂ’s fragile coalition government, and ministersÂ’ bodyguards have sometimes been accused of acting as private militias in the brutal world of Baghdad politics.
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