BAGHDAD, June 5: Gunmen in commando uniforms snatched at least 50 people from travel agencies in central Baghdad on Monday in an apparent kidnapping, as 11 students were shot dead elsewhere in the Iraqi capital.

The commander of the police commandos in Baghdad, Major-General Rashid Fulayah, contradicted earlier reports that the operation was officially sanctioned.

“The ministry of interior has nothing to do with this arrest and especially not the commando forces and the forces of public order brigades who are not authorised to do such operations,” Fulayah told AFP.

Two Syrians were among those taken away.

“They took people away randomly,” said one store owner on Salhiya street, convinced it was criminal elements.

“They grabbed a father and his two children but left the mother on the street shouting.”

Witnesses described how two vehicles painted with the distinctive camouflage pattern of the commandos, accompanied by another 10 unmarked pick-up trucks, blocked off the street and began taking people away.

“If they were the government, they would have investigated and asked who the people they took were,” said another witness who preferred to remain anonymous.

Unattended small trucks for hauling goods lined the street after their drivers had been taken away.

The raid took about 10 minutes, and the police who came to investigate claimed no knowledge of the operation.

The confusion over whether the raid was officially sanctioned or a criminal operation is a reflection of the widespread suspicion people in Baghdad have of security forces, some of whom are believed to be infiltrated by militias.

A number of other violent operations have been carried out by gunmen in uniforms, which can be easily purchased in the city’s markets.

In separate violence, at least 27 people died in Iraq on Monday, including 15 in Baghdad alone, while more than 80 people died in the previous two days around the country.

Eleven students were killed in southern Baghdad on Monday when gunmen in two cars stopped their bus and riddled it with bullets, said an official with the defence ministry.

The attack took place in the southern neighbourhood of Dura, scene of numerous attacks.

The students were returning from a local technical college when they were attacked.—AFP