By Xinhua
Baghdad : Gunmen kidnapped a minibus driver and released five female passengers on board at a faked checkpoint in southeastern Baghdad on Sunday, a police source said.
“Unknown gunmen set up a faked checkpoint in the predominantly Shiite neighborhood of al-Jadida in Baghdad and abducted a minibus carrying five female employees working at Baghdad University’s college of Languages,” the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
Minutes later, the gunmen released the five female passengers unharmed and took the driver with his minibus, the source said.
The incident took place in the morning while the driver was collecting passengers in the neighborhood, he added.
Earlier in the day, an Interior Ministry source said that gunmen stormed a house on Saturday night in Baghdad’s northeastern neighborhood of Ur, killing an old man and two women and injuring their son.
Also on Sunday morning, an Iraqi soldier was wounded by a roadside bomb blast near an Iraqi army checkpoint in the Waziriyah neighborhood in northern the capital, the source said.
Sporadic attacks continue in Baghdad despite the related lull of violence across the capital according to U.S. and Iraqi officials.