By Xinhua
Baghdad : Gunmen kidnapped 11 government employees on a main road near the city of Baquba, the capital of the volatile Diyala province of Iraq on Monday, a provincial police source said.
“Some 20 unidentified gunmen set up a fake checkpoint in the morning on the main road between Baghdad and Baquba and hijacked a minibus carrying 11 government employees,” the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
The incident took place near Hashimiyat village, 25 km southeast of Baquba, the source said, adding that Iraqi security forces immediately launched an investigation into the incident.
In a separate incident, a US airborne force stormed the village of Tyzan near the town of Maqdadiyah, some 100 km northeast of Baghdad and detained seven villagers suspected of collaborating with the Mahdi Army militia loyal to radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
Diyala province, which stretches from the eastern edges of Baghdad to the Iranian border, has long been the hotbed of insurgency and sectarian violence since the US-led invasion in 2003.