Raid fails to find Shiite 'hostages'

IRAQI troops backed by United States forces raided a town south of Baghdad yesterday looking for a group of Shiites said to have been seized by Sunni insurgents and threatened with death.

The extent of the hostage crisis remained unclear last night with a senior Shiite official in Baghdad saying up to 150 hostages, including women and children, were being held, while a police official said the number could be as few as three.

One report also said that the new raids had freed about 15 Shiite families.

Iraq’s caretaker prime minister, Ayad Allawi, blamed the abductions on al-Qaeda’s wing in Iraq and said it was part of a plan to try to provoke a Sunni-Shiite civil war.

But an internet statement issued by al-Qaeda in Iraq said the reports of hostage-taking had been fabricated as a pretext for raiding the town.

Another Sunni insurgent group, the Islamic Army in Iraq, echoed the accusation in a separate internet posting.

Despite the confusion, the crisis has raised fears of deeper sectarian strife in a country struggling to form a government that balances the interests of Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds after decades of iron-fisted rule under Saddam Hussein.

Iraqi forces armed with machine-guns and assault rifles moved to the edge of Madaen, about 25 miles south east of Baghdad, yesterday and US troops cut off two bridges near the town.

"Three brigades have been moved towards the area and this morning there were five from the Iraqi national guard, the ministry of interior and multinational forces," Kassim Daoud, the minister of state for national security, told parliament.

"Three areas where we suspected there were terrorists were raided but no-one was found. There are other areas we will attack soon."

Sunni militant groups have carried out abductions before, part of a campaign Iraqi officials say is designed to spark a civil war between majority Shiites and once-dominant Sunnis.

A senior Shiite official said residents of Madaen called him on Friday night saying their relatives had been kidnapped and were threatened with death.

On Saturday, state-run Iraqi Television said the gunmen had threatened to start killing the 150 hostages in 24 hours.

Other people in Madaen, where shops have started closing in expectation of fighting, insisted there was no hostage crisis.