Talk about Haditha - but there's another very strange aspect to this report. It suggests Russia may not be doing us much good in Iraq.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (Reuters) - Violence raged across Iraq on Sunday amid signs its leaders remained deadlocked on naming new interior and defense ministers critical to restoring stability in the strife-torn country.
In one of the worst incidents, gunmen dragged 24 civilians out of their cars at a makeshift checkpoint in a town north of Baghdad and shot them "execution style," police said.
The victims included students, children and elderly men, said a senior police official in Diyala province, scene of frequent attacks by insurgents waging a campaign of bombings and shootings to topple the U.S.-backed, Shi'ite-led government.
But there's something buried in the story I was getting ready to blog about. As Rusty noted yesterday:
The United Nations condemned an attack on Russian embassy employees in Baghdad that claimed the life of one Russian and resulted in the kidnapping of four others.
UN Security Council and Secretary General Kofi Annan issued separate statements condemning the attack and calling for immediate release of the four hostages.
And a day later: Iraqi state television, meanwhile, quoted Interior Ministry officials as saying four Russian embassy employees kidnapped in Baghdad have been released. The embassy said it could not confirm this.
And this: Initial reports said Russian Special Forces rescued the hostages, now we're being told they were simply set free. I can't think of one other foreign national kidnapped suddenly turning up unharmed the next day, let alone four.
A police official earlier dismissed reports that Iraqi special forces had rescued the four Russians, who were abducted on Saturday in Baghdad after their colleague was killed.
Isn't one logical conclusion that the Russians were caught up in a terrorist encounter by mistake and their connections are so good with the jihadists that they were simply released? Like they say, with friends like that ...
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