AP: 8 Females (killed), 2 Teenagers Kidnapped in Iraq

[Eugene]

8 Females, 2 Teenagers Kidnapped in Iraq


Friday October 13, 2006 9:31 PM

AP Photo BAG101

By HAMZA HENDAWI

Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Gunmen attacked Shiite women picking vegetables
in a field outside the capital Friday, killing six adults and two young
girls and kidnapping two teenagers. It was one of the deadliest assaults
specifically targeting women in Iraq's monthslong wave of sectarian
violence.

Police said they suspected the gunmen were Sunnis seeking to intimidate
Shiites into fleeing the area south of Baghdad. Previous major attacks
in Iraq have killed many women and men together, and at times individual
women have been shot or kidnapped. But rarely have large groups of women
been attacked.

In another sign of sectarian bloodshed, police in Duluiyah north of Baghdad
found 14 beheaded bodies thought to be from a group of 17 workers kidnapped
by gunmen Thursday while traveling home to the mostly Shiite town of Balad.
There was no word on the other abductees.

The attack on the farm field took place outside Saifiya, an ethnically mixed
village south of Baghdad. Most residents already fled to escape violence,
Sunnis going to the nearby town of Madain, Shiites to neighboring Suwayrah.

-snip-

Full article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6145844,00.html

Alternate AP headline: Gunmen kill 8 women and girls working in field outside Baghdad

[rodeodance]

1. my gawd! there are no words for this violence.