This Iraqi kidnapping has the mark of an undercover police operation

[Jacuma]

Who seized Simona Torretta?

Naomi Klein and Jeremy Scahill
Thursday September 16, 2004
The Guardian

When Simona Torretta returned to Baghdad in March 2003, in the midst of
the
"shock and awe" aerial bombardment, her Iraqi friends greeted her by
telling her she was nuts. "They were just so surprised to see me. They
said, 'Why are you coming here? Go back to Italy. Are you crazy?'"

But Torretta didn't go back. She stayed throughout the invasion,
continuing
the humanitarian work she began in 1996, when she first visited Iraq
with
her anti-sanctions NGO, A Bridge to Baghdad. When Baghdad fell, Torretta
again opted to stay, this time to bring medicine and water to Iraqis
suffering under occupation. Even after resistance fighters began
targeting
foreigners, and most foreign journalists and aid workers fled, Torretta
again returned. "I cannot stay in Italy," the 29-year-old told a
documentary film-maker.

Today, Torretta's life is in danger, along with the lives of her fellow
Italian aid worker Simona Pari, and their Iraqi colleagues Raad Ali
Abdul
Azziz and Mahnouz Bassam. Eight days ago, the four were snatched at
gunpoint from their home/office in Baghdad and have not been heard from
since. In the absence of direct communication from their abductors,
political controversy swirls round the incident. Proponents of the war
are
using it to paint peaceniks as naive, blithely supporting a resistance
that
answers international solidarity with kidnappings and beheadings.
Meanwhile, a growing number of Islamic leaders are hinting that the raid
on
A Bridge to Baghdad was not the work of mujahideen, but of foreign
intelligence agencies out to discredit the resistance.

Nothing about this kidnapping fits the pattern of other abductions. Most
are opportunistic attacks on treacherous stretches of road. Torretta and
her colleagues were coldly hunted down in their home. And while
mujahideen
in Iraq scrupulously hide their identities, making sure to wrap their
faces
in scarves, these kidnappers were bare-faced and clean-shaven, some in
business suits. One assailant was addressed by the others as "sir".

Kidnap victims have overwhelmingly been men, yet three of these four are
women. Witnesses say the gunmen questioned staff in the building until
the
Simonas were identified by name, and that Mahnouz Bassam, an Iraqi woman,
was dragged screaming by her headscarf, a shocking religious
transgression
for an attack supposedly carried out in the name of Islam.

Most extraordinary was the size of the operation: rather than the usual
three or four fighters, 20 armed men pulled up to the house in broad
daylight, seemingly unconcerned about being caught. Only blocks from the
heavily patrolled Green Zone, the whole operation went off with no
interference from Iraqi police or US military - although Newsweek
reported
that "about 15 minutes afterwards, an American Humvee convoy passed
hardly
a block away".

And then there were the weapons. The attackers were armed with AK-47s,
shotguns, pistols with silencers and stun guns - hardly the mujahideen's
standard-issue rusty Kalashnikovs. Strangest of all is this detail:
witnesses said that several attackers wore Iraqi National Guard uniforms
and identified themselves as working for Ayad Allawi, the interim prime
minister.

An Iraqi government spokesperson denied that Allawi's office was
involved.
But Sabah Kadhim, a spokesperson for the interior ministry, conceded
that
the kidnappers "were wearing military uniforms and flak jackets". So was
this a kidnapping by the resistance or a covert police operation? Or was
it
something worse: a revival of Saddam's mukhabarat disappearances, when
agents would arrest enemies of the regime, never to be heard from again?
Who could have pulled off such a coordinated operation - and who stands
to
benefit from an attack on this anti-war NGO?

On Monday, the Italian press began reporting on one possible answer.
Sheikh
Abdul Salam al-Kubaisi, from Iraq's leading Sunni cleric organisation,
told
reporters in Baghdad that he received a visit from Torretta and Pari the
day before the kidnap. "They were scared," the cleric said. "They told
me
that someone threatened them." Asked who was behind the threats, al-Kubaisi
replied: "We suspect some foreign intelligence."

Blaming unpopular resistance attacks on CIA or Mossad conspiracies is
idle
chatter in Baghdad, but coming from Kubaisi, the claim carries unusual
weight; he has ties with a range of resistance groups and has brokered
the
release of several hostages. Kubaisi's allegations have been widely
reported in Arab media, as well as in Italy, but have been absent from
the
English-language press.

Western journalists are loath to talk about spies for fear of being
labelled conspiracy theorists. But spies and covert operations are not a
conspiracy in Iraq; they are a daily reality. According to CIA deputy
director James L Pavitt, "Baghdad is home to the largest CIA station
since
the Vietnam war", with 500 to 600 agents on the ground. Allawi himself
is a
lifelong spook who has worked with MI6, the CIA and the mukhabarat,
specialising in removing enemies of the regime.

A Bridge to Baghdad has been unapologetic in its opposition to the
occupation regime. During the siege of Falluja in April, it coordinated
risky humanitarian missions. US forces had sealed the road to Falluja
and
banished the press as they prepared to punish the entire city for the
gruesome killings of four Blackwater mercenaries. In August, when US
marines laid siege to Najaf, A Bridge to Baghdad again went where the
occupation forces wanted no witnesses. And the day before their
kidnapping,
Torretta and Pari told Kubaisi that they were planning yet another
high-risk mission to Falluja.

In the eight days since their abduction, pleas for their release have
crossed all geographical, religious and cultural lines. The Palestinian
group Islamic Jihad, Hizbullah, the International Association of Islamic
Scholars and several Iraqi resistance groups have all voiced outrage. A
resistance group in Falluja said the kidnap suggests collaboration with
foreign forces. Yet some voices are conspicuous by their absence: the
White
House and the office of Allawi. Neither has said a word.

What we do know is this: if this hostage-taking ends in bloodshed,
Washington, Rome and their Iraqi surrogates will be quick to use the
tragedy to justify the brutal occupation - an occupation that Simona
Torretta, Simona Pari, Raad Ali Abdul Azziz and Mahnouz Bassam risked
their
lives to oppose. And we will be left wondering whether that was the plan
all along.

Jeremy Scahill is a reporter for the independent US radio/TV show
Democracy Now; Naomi Klein is the author of No Logo and Fences and
Windows

jeremy@democracynow.org

www.nologo.com