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Tu Nov 14 -

BAGHDAD UPDATE -

# Latest from the ::BBC::
*All of the hostages seized in a raid by gunmen on a Baghdad higher education facility have been released, Iraqi officials say.*
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# Discussion of the mass kidnapping at the Higher Education Ministry building is at Treasure of Baghdad: The Iraqi Killing Fields and on that comment thread.
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# Although it hasn't received much attention here in the U.S. yet, it was reported by Azzaman over the weekwend that armed men, in police garb, kidnapped the head of the Iraqi Red Crescent in Baghdad, Dr. Ans al-Azzawi.
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# Nibras Kazmi believes that much of the violence that's been going on in the Adhamiyah neighborhood is being perpetrated by Abu Dera's gang. But Kazimi says he believes that that Dera himself is currently in Iran. If that is so, then who has been directing the intense hostilities against the neighborhood while Dera's been gone?
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# Fatima tells a squatting story from Amiriya. The family whose home was captured by the squatters is mixed (Sunni/Shiite), which adds complexities to the story.
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# Shaggy is still in Baghdad.

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