Phony cops stage mass abduction in Baghdad

BAGHDAD -- Gunmen in police uniforms and official-looking vehicles stormed the city's central marketplace this morning, kidnapping between at least 21 and as many as 60 storekeepers and buyers amid bursts of automatic weapon-fire and panic, police and witnesses said.

The abduction, the latest in a series of mass kidnappings, took place in the open-air Sinak wholesale market a few hundred yards from the walls of the Green Zone, Iraq's U.S.-protected administrative fortress, and headquarters of Iraq's Ministry of Defense.

It began shortly before 10 a.m. when a convoy of between 10 and 13 sport-utility vehicles of the type often used by official security forces screeched into the section of the market selling spare car parts, sealing off the main routes to the area, said witnesses.

Gunfire shook the area as panicked storeowners locked themselves in their stores and shoppers fled for cover, said Mundhir Hashim, who works in a Sinak store selling pesticides.

"The culprits proceeded to apprehend people at gunpoint," he said. "I also heard that the culprits emptied the registers of several shops and even stole some goods."