November 15, 2006

• Dozens Abducted in Brazen Raid on Iraq Ministry,Pilot of Plane in Trouble Finds Safe Place to Land i

  Wrinkle Rivals Go to War November 8, 2006     Illustration by Chang Park for The New York Times Dave Weaver for The New York Times FACE TO FACE Dr. Joel Schlessinger holds the contenders. He took part in the Juvéderm giveaway. , 2006 Wrinkle Rivals Go to War By NATASHA SINGER COKE or Pepsi? Mac or PC? Restylane or Juvéderm? The last two products, cosmetic injections used to fill out facial creases and hollows, are hardly household names. But when the makers of Juvéderm began giving away their product free to users of Restylane last month, they set off a marketing battle, which some see as the $12-billion-a-year cosmetic medical industry’s budding version of the cola wars. With an estimated one million Americans using injections to smooth wrinkles and plump up skin, the makers of Juvéderm have invited doctors to enroll up to 10,000 patients in a giveaway program for their product. Robert Grant, the president of Allergan Medical, which makes Juvéderm, said the free trial program — offered only to patients who have used Restylane, the leading facial filler — will provide the company with feedback about the new product, which was approved in June by the Food and Drug Administration. He said the giveaway is also part of a plan to make Juvéderm a household name on a par with the company’s blockbuster cosmetic injection, Botox. But Medicis Pharmaceutical Corporation, which owns the American rights to Restylane, has denounced the giveaway, calling it biased, risky to patients and “a commercial platform under the guise of science.” To some doctors and industry analysts, the free Juvéderm injections represent the opening salvo in a battle for dominance in the rapidly growing market for cosmetic facial injections, a competition expected to intensify as the F.D.A. approves other products. Pharmaceutical company sales from fillers last year were estimated to be $250 million, which is up from about $100 million in 2003, said David Steinberg, an equity researcher in specialty pharmaceuticals at Deutsche Bank in San Francisco. That does not include 2005 sales figures for the cosmetic use of Botox, a toxin injected into the skin, which performs a different function: relaxing the muscles underneath wrinkles. The sales of Botox for cosmetic use were estimated to be around $360 million, he said. Over all, there are no reliable statistics on how many filler treatments are administered because each patient requires different amounts. But Mr. Grant of Allergan said there are 27 million potential American customers for all injections. Critics said the marketing of these products is an attempt by manufacturers to make cosmetic medical treatments seem less clinical, turning them into consumer brand names like those at department store beauty counters. Dr. Lawrence S. Reed, a plastic surgeon in Manhattan, likened the Juvéderm giveaway to the Pepsi Challenge. “This is a foolish promotion that is going to start a war of injectables between Restylane and Juvéderm, which, like Coke and Pepsi, are essentially made out of the same ingredients, using slightly different formulas,” Dr. Reed said. In a youth-dominated, celebrity-obsessed culture, aggressive marketing for medical products that can temporarily or even permanently augment the skin is hardly a surprise. But with an increasing range of cosmetic medical procedures that promise to unfurrow wrinkles, spackle creases, fatten up lips and plump cheeks and other bits of flesh that abate with age, consumers are likely to have more of a challenge distinguishing the safest and most effective brand of treatment. At the moment the injectable substances approved by the F.D.A. to fill out facial folds are collagen; several brands of hyaluronic acid; and ArteFill, tiny permanent beads suspended in a collagen solution. Other substances pending approval for cosmetic use include a more viscous hyaluronic acid called Perlane, and Radiesse, a paste containing calcium particles. “We are in the age of fillers,” said Dr. Paul J. Frank, a dermatologist in Manhattan, who participated in the giveaway program, calling it “an excellent marketing ploy.” Dr. Frank added, “We are going to see much more market competition.” Both Restylane and Juvéderm are transparent gels made of hyaluronic acid, a complex chain of sugar molecules, which is related to the same substance the human body produces to give structure to the skin. Unlike Botox, which works by temporarily paralyzing the muscles underlying wrinkles, injections of hyaluronic acid temporarily fill out depleted areas, adding volume to the skin. “Hyaluronic acid is like the Jell-O molds you made as a kid that magically suspended pieces of fruit,” said Dr. Richard G. Glogau, a clinical professor of dermatology at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Glogau has been paid to conduct research for Allergan and Medicis. “You are basically injecting more Jell-O soup into your skin.” The cosmetic effects of such injections usually last up to six months or more, he said. Side effects have included swelling, bruising and lumpiness. Restylane, approved in 2003 by the Food and Drug Administration to fill out facial wrinkles and folds, is also used by doctors to increase volume in the lips. Restylane represents about half the American filler market, said Mr. Steinberg of Deutsche Bank. Medicis estimates that Americans had about 750,000 Restylane treatments last year. Patients pay about $350 to $800 for each syringe, depending on the doctor, and several syringes may be used, depending on the size of the treatment area. Juvéderm, which will not be widely available to doctors until January, uses a different formula, which makes its texture less thick. Doctors will pay $242 for a syringe of Juvéderm that is 20 percent smaller than a $240 syringe of Restylane. Introduced last month, the giveaway program, called the Juvéderm Experience Trial, invited doctors to select six patients who used Restylane within the last year for free Juvéderm injections in their smile lines. Allergan declined to discuss specifics, but, according to protocols sent to participating doctors, up to 10,000 patients were to be enrolled by the end of last week and doctors must follow up the results for nine months. Mr. Grant of Allergan described the program as a way for doctors and patients to familiarize themselves with the new product and for the company to gauge its ease of use and longevity. But the giveaway is also an attempt to unseat Restylane as America’s most popular facial filler. “We are confident that patients who have had Restylane in the past are going to switch to Juvéderm,” Mr. Grant said. Some patients who received the free treatments were enthusiastic. “It’s awesome to get it free,” said Nancy Komar, a receptionist at a urology practice in Indian Creek, Neb. She received free Juvéderm injections last month from Dr. Joel Schlessinger, a dermatologist in Omaha. “That’s at least $1,000 worth of free treatment.” But Medicis, the distributor of Restylane, sent out a warning letter last month to thousands of doctors, contending that the giveaway program is risky and that any data it collected would be biased and unscientific. “There is no evidence that injecting their product on top of ours is safe,” said Mitchell S. Wortzman, the executive vice president of Medicis. “And when you get a free treatment, you tend to favor the free treatment over the one you paid for.” Mr. Grant of Allergan said there is no safety issue because doctors in Europe who use the fillers sequentially have not seen complications. Dr. Schlessinger said one benefit of the increasing filler market could be more head-to-head research by manufacturers. “Finally some competition that should bring up the level of science, if the companies are bold enough to do a real comparative study,” said Dr. Schlessinger, who has been a paid consultant and researcher for Allergan and Medicis and owns stock in both companies. But Dr. Mark G. Rubin, a dermatologist in Beverly Hills, Calif., cautioned that the marketing hype over fillers might make patients overlook the fact that these injections are medical procedures with potential risk. “It’s an intriguing way of getting a new product out into the marketplace very early and convincing physicians and patients to try it,” said Dr. Rubin, who has conducted research for Medicis and is on its advisory board and who participated in the Juvéderm giveaway. “But only time will tell whether this weird, not very scientific way of doing things becomes standard marketing practice, or whether other companies will shy away from it because it makes doctors uncomfortable.”   Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

  You Paid How Much for That Bike? Ruby Washington/The New York Times NO GREASE IN SIGHT At Signature Cycles in Manhattan, above, Grant Salter, a bike fitter, at right in photo, assists Michael Mann. Clients can sip espresso as they shop. November 9, 2006 You Paid How Much for That Bike? By STEVE FRIEDMAN IN April, two months before turning 39, Stacy Jargowsky decided to learn to ride a bicycle. So she spent $9,000 for a brushed-silver custom-made bike called a Guru. “If I can only have one, I feel like it should be the best,” she said. It was made of titanium, which — gearhead chatter about high performance, ultralight strength and lifetime durability notwithstanding — is as incredibly cool as it sounds. (Try saying “I’m taking my titanium Guru out for a spin today.” Don’t you feel better?) A few months later, Ms. Jargowsky, who works for Flybar, a pogo-stick manufacturer, spent $10,000 for another custom-made cycle. “They kind of become like pets,” she said. “Once you have one, you want to get another.” This time she bought a Cervelo, made of carbon fiber. It’s black. Carbon, according to many in the gearhead community, is even cooler than titanium. That Ms. Jargowsky spent the equivalent of a few years’ tuition at a perfectly respectable state university to buy two bikes when she barely knew how to ride may strike some people as — let’s be honest here — floridly insane. Then again, people who raise their eyebrows at titanium Gurus and the men and women who love them like pets, it is safe to say, have not been paying attention to what’s been happening at the upper end of the cycling market in Manhattan. “You go to Central Park and there are all these expensive custom-made bikes, and they’re not just for the bike geeks anymore,” said Noah Budnick, a deputy director at Transportation Alternatives, a nonprofit group that lobbies for bicycle-friendly laws in New York City. “You have these corporate guys now. I like to say that bicycling is the new golf.” Nationwide, demand for specially made bikes is higher than ever. “Custom bike sales are on the rise, and we’re nowhere near the saturation point yet,” said Megan Tompkins, the editor of Bicycle Retailer and Industry News, a trade magazine. Lance Armstrong‘s seven Tour de France victories provide one explanation why the road bike has seized back ground it had lost to mountain bikes in the ’80s and ’90s. Another reason: aging baby boomers with worn-out knees have embraced cycling as a low-impact, aerobically demanding alternative to cartilage-grinding sports like basketball and tennis. The explosive growth of triathlons, whose participants need bicycles that will perform at long distances, has created tens of thousands more buyers since 2000. Finally — and not to be underestimated, especially in Manhattan — rich people like to buy cool things. It’s no secret to anyone who has ever endured an encounter with a grease-stained, eye-rolling, heavily sighing bicycle shop employee that customer service in the industry has historically ranged from sullen to supercilious to overtly hateful. (“It’s one of the few retail industries where a condition for employment seems to be utter contempt for the customer,” said one industry executive.) Perhaps that’s why many local sellers of custom bikes are newcomers to the market and eager to cater to a discriminating clientele. In January, JackRabbit, based in Brooklyn, opened a store at 42 West 14th Street, near Union Square. It traffics almost exclusively in custom bicycles, mostly carbon and titanium. So does two-year-old SBR MultiSports, at 203 West 58th Street, where Ms. Jargowsky bought her bikes. Signature Cycles opened its appointment-only store at 80 West End Avenue in February. Although Altheus Cycling and Endurance Center, based in Rye, N.Y., closed its Union Square branch this week, Tom Crawford, the store’s president, said the company plans to open at least one Manhattan outpost in 2007. In mid-April, another store that specializes in custom bicycles, Cadence Cycling and Multisport Centers in Philadelphia, will open an 11,000-square-foot store at 174 Hudson Street. Customers who buy bikes at any of these shops first undergo an interrogation that bears more similarity to an adoption proceeding than to a bicycle purchase. What are their hopes for their new bicycle? What are their dreams? After the discussion comes the hallmark feature of the custom bike experience: the fitting. An assessment can last one to five hours, and — depending on the store — may involve computerized pedaling analysis, range-of-motion tests and individually designed insoles for cycling shoes (all for $200 to $375). The cheapest bike at any of the stores costs about $1,600 (a single-speed aluminum road bike), and the most expensive, $23,000 (a carbon time-trial bike sold at Signature Cycles that comes with handmade German wheels at $5,500 a set). If traditional bicycle shops are to SBR, Altheus and JackRabbit as coach is to first class, then Signature Cycles is a Gulfstream jet. “Very, very boutique,” David Jordan, a cycling coach and former professional racer, said of Signature Cycles. He said that Paul Levine, Signature’s owner, will “offer you a glass of Courvoisier while you discuss your cycling habits.” At Signature Cycles’ Manhattan store (there is also a branch in Central Valley, N.Y.), there is a massage table for range-of-motion analysis. There is an espresso machine. There is, at the bar, Penfolds Shiraz and Maker’s Mark. Courvoisier, too. There is a shower, because the fitting can be strenuous, and, as Grant Salter, an employee, said, “Our clients are Wall Street guys, and they don’t want to go back to the office after a visit here and close a $5 million deal all sweaty and smelly.” To cyclists for whom the phrase “close a $5 million deal” has approximately the same relevance as “Why not take a weekend jaunt to the third moon of Jupiter,” bicycles like the ones sold at Signature may represent nothing so much as the glittery and degraded signs of a gilded age’s inevitable decline. Don’t tell that to custom bike owners, though. A year ago, when Manny Vidal came to Signature Cycles, he was 42 and hadn’t been on a road bike for 20 years, and, at 5 feet 11 inches, weighed 260 pounds. He would go to the gym once or twice a week. He felt tired often. Since buying his $10,000 gray titanium-and-carbon Serotta, Mr. Vidal, the chief executive of Vidal Partnership, which specializes in advertising in the Hispanic market, has lost more than 40 pounds. He rides at least 5 days a week for 90 minutes. Mr. Vidal admits that his Serotta is sometimes more than just something he pedals. “Oh, it’s definitely an accessory,” he said. “People stop you and comment on the bike. They’ll want to talk about it, ask you about it. They’re the same kinds of looks I used to get when I drove a Porsche.” Ms. Jargowsky, who rides 60 to 70 miles a week, also confesses to a special bond with her bikes. “The first time I had to check my triathlon bike for my race, I really noticed it missing in my home,” said Mr. Jargowsky, who finished three triathlons this summer. “I would look out in the hallway and it wasn’t there. It was kind of sad.” An accessory? Sad? Are these the sentiments of serious cyclists or well-heeled fanatics? Is there a difference? Dr. David Levine, an orthopedic surgeon at the Hospital for Special Surgery in Manhattan, took up cycling three years ago. Now 39, he rides three or four laps around Central Park every weekday morning, with a group of other doctors from the hospital. They average about 16 minutes for a 6-mile lap, or 22.5 miles an hour. Dr. Levine (no relation to Paul, the Signature Cycles owner) rides a carbon Colnago, which he got from an Italian anesthesiologist who, he said, “has a nice connection to a bike shop in Como.” Yes, he said, riders of high-end bikes notice other high-end bikes. Is there wheel envy? “I’m not sure I’d call it that,” he said, adding that it’s more a matter of proud owners comparing the advantages of their bikes’ technology. Dr. Levine bristled slightly when it was suggested that people like him may be a little, um, obsessed with what is, after all, just a bicycle. “You do feel a connection with it,” he said. “But I don’t think anyone in our group takes it to a psychotic, unreasonable extent.” He paused. “But my wife might disagree with that.”   Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

  Pilot of Plane in Trouble Finds Safe Place to Land in a Brooklyn Park Jeremy M. Lange for The New York Times A Cessna 172 that needed to land in Calvert Vaux Park, near the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, was examined Tuesday. The pilot, Paul P. Dudley, right, was not injured. November 15, 2006 Pilot of Plane in Trouble Finds Safe Place to Land in a Brooklyn Park By MICHAEL WILSON The builders of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge probably saved someone’s life yesterday. They needed a place to dump all the displaced dirt from its construction, and ended up creating a new hunk of land that jutted out of Brooklyn into Coney Island Creek like a hitchhiker’s thumb. In 1962, that land became part of a city park. Yesterday, it became an impromptu runway for Paul P. Dudley, a pilot, by being in the right place — under him — at the right time when his plane’s engine quit. “There was no engine,” said John Lloyd, one of three fishermen who saw the small Cessna 172 coming in. “The plane was off.” Mr. Dudley made an emergency landing in Calvert Vaux Park shortly after 10:30 a.m., touching down in an empty field and taxiing about 100 yards before crossing a small berm and coming to a stop, man and machine undamaged. The cause of the engine trouble is under investigation. Mr. Dudley was traveling to Linden Airport in New Jersey from Westhampton Beach Airport on southeastern Long Island, about a 100-mile trip that he said takes 35 to 40 minutes in a Cessna. He works as a manager at the airport in Linden, in Union County. He said he has been flying this route for about 20 years. “It’s akin to getting a blowout with your car on the highway,” he said last night. “This was a nonevent.” Mr. Dudley, 51, who said he lived in homes on both Staten Island and Long Island, said that the plane’s problem was mechanical. He added that workers found about eight gallons of fuel in the Cessna’s tank after the landing, so despite speculation by some people at the scene, being out of gas was not the cause. The tracks of the Cessna left creases in the taller-than-average grass where people from Coney Island, Gravesend and Brighton Beach in Brooklyn can sometimes be found playing a pickup game of football. “I detected something wrong with the airplane, and rather than risk going across the water and maybe or maybe not making it, this was the closest available field,” Mr. Dudley told reporters in the park, near 27th Avenue and Shore Parkway in Brooklyn. “You’re trained to look for places to land. That’s all there is to it.” Later, he added: “If you have a good spot and an empty spot, you take it. You don’t take the chance of kids playing ball in the next field.” The three friends from Coney Island were fishing for striped bass nearby in the creek when they witnessed the landing. They said they could tell he was in trouble because the wings were tipping back and forth. What was worse, they added, was that the plane was producing no sound. “He needed to buy $10 of gas,” said Ernell Gomez, one of the fisherman. Mr. Lloyd, who was fishing with Mr. Gomez, said that he believed that the pilot was going to try a water landing. “Then he saw that soccer field and said, ‘Hey, I’m going to try this,’ ” Mr. Lloyd said. One of the fishermen called 911 with a cellphone. It turned out they saw more than just the landing. They believed so strongly that they had seen the airplane strike a crane’s boom that they were certain the pilot was badly injured. “How bad was he hurt? Is he pretty bad?” Mr. Lloyd asked a reporter. “Seems like the front of it would be pretty bad. You figure the pilot’s face hit the windshield, like a car.” The men were surprised to hear that the pilot was fine. “He’s definitely lucky,” Mr. Lloyd said. Investigators from the Federal Aviation Administration said they planned to interview Mr. Dudley on Friday. The National Transportation Safety Board is not looking into the landing because it does not qualify as an accident. A group of men spent more than four hours yesterday taking the wings off the Cessna so it could be loaded on a flatbed truck and carted to New Jersey. But the airplane’s wheels were stuck in the mud, and as darkness approached, Mr. Dudley hurried off to a nearby Home Depot for wooden planks. A handful of nearby residents, attracted by the police helicopters, came by the park for a look. “Any landing is a good landing,” said Joe Barone, 62, himself a pilot. Calvert Vaux Park, named in 1998 for the architect and one of the designers of Central Park, Prospect Park, Morningside Park and Fort Greene Park in the 1800s, is a little larger than 73 acres. Much of it was created from landfill from the bridge, according to the Parks Department. It was formerly known as the Dreier-Offerman Park, named for a home for unwed mothers and children that once stood on part of the property. “Over here, they don’t do much,” said Ed Henry, who lives nearby. “I guess he picked a good place to land a plane. When I was a kid, this was all water. They took tons and tons of dump trucks full of dirt and dumped it here.” Asked about the experience of landing in such a place, Mr. Dudley said, “Walk in the park.” Ann Farmer and Patrick McGeehan contributed reporting.   Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

  Dozens Abducted in Brazen Raid on Iraq Ministry Wathiq Khuzaie/Getty Images Iraqis gathered Tuesday at the Ministry of Higher Education compound after dozens were kidnapped. November 15, 2006 Dozens Abducted in Brazen Raid on Iraq Ministry By JOHN F. BURNS and MICHAEL LUO BAGHDAD, Wednesday, Nov. 15 — Gunmen dressed in Iraqi police commando uniforms and driving vehicles with Interior Ministry markings rounded up dozens of people inside a government building in the heart of Baghdad on Tuesday and drove off with them in one of the most brazen mass kidnappings since a wave of sectarian abductions and killings became a feature of the war. Although some Iraqi officials said as many as 150 people had been taken, the American military command put the total at 55. Witnesses said as many as 50 gunmen arrived at the Ministry of Higher Education compound at midmorning, forced their way past a handful of guards and stormed through a four-story building, herding office workers, visitors and even a delivery boy outside at rifle point. After women were separated, the men were loaded aboard a fleet of more than 30 pickup trucks and two larger trucks, then driven away through heavy traffic toward mainly Shiite neighborhoods on the city’s eastern edge, officials and witnesses said. Late in the evening there were conflicting reports that some or most of those taken had been freed. Iraqiya state television reported that most of those seized had been freed in security operations, but a Shiite station, Al Furat, said 25 people were still missing, according to Reuters. None of the reports could be confirmed. A spokesman for the Interior Ministry, which is responsible for the police, announced on state television several hours after the abductions that orders had been issued for the arrest of several police commanders from the Karada area in eastern Baghdad, site of the Higher Education Ministry. The announcement combined with other details, including accounts by one of a group of about a dozen people released by the kidnappers later on Tuesday, to suggest that the abductions may have been the latest in a series of mass kidnappings carried out by Shiite gangs and death squads operating from inside the Interior Ministry, or with access to its uniforms and vehicles. If the abductions are traced to groups operating under Interior Ministry cover, they seem certain to add a new level of crisis to the political tensions in Baghdad. On Wednesday, an Interior Ministry spokesman said a brigade of the police searching in eastern Baghdad had found and freed 30 kidnap victims. He said the brigade was continuing its search and expected to free the remaining victims before the end of the day. Recent events in the United States, including the Democrats‘ midterm election gains last week and the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, have intensified American pressure on Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki and the alliance of Shiite religious groups he leads to act decisively to improve his government’s performance — in effect, to show that America has trustworthy partner, and help to head off the momentum in Washington for a withdrawal of American troops. Action against sectarian militias and death squads, particularly those associated with the governing Shiite parties, tops the American priorities that have been urged on the Iraqi leader, most recently in a meeting in Baghdad Monday with the top American military commander in the Middle East, Gen. John P. Abizaid. Late on Tuesday, Mr. Maliki, appearing on state-run television, seemed eager to establish that he had responded swiftly to the abductions, saying that he had ordered the Defense and Interior Ministries to mount an intensive search for those seized. During a meeting with the Iraqi president, Jalal Talabani, Mr. Maliki appeared to suggest that the kidnappers came from the Mahdi Army, an unruly militia headed by the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, a mainstay of the ruling Shiite alliance. “What is happening is not terrorism, but the result of disagreements and conflict between militias belonging to this side or that,” he said. The 56-year-old prime minister said security sweeps had been responsible for the dozen people released earlier in the day, though that did not immediately tally with the account given by a Shiite ministry official who was among those set free. The official said he and others in his group were separated from the main body of those seized by their kidnappers after the gunmen quizzed all their captives about their identities and occupations. After being driven blindfolded to a rural area in northern Baghdad, the official said, they were abandoned and left to make their own way to safety. The government’s swift response in ordering the arrest of the police commanders broke with a pattern of inaction in several earlier mass kidnappings that appeared to have been linked to Shiite death squads. While concern to show a new resolve to restive critics of the war in Washington was likely to have been a major spur, another was the sheer scale and audacity of the attack. By seizing such a large number of people from a government building, in the center of the capital, in broad daylight, the kidnappers appeared to be sending a message that they could pounce anywhere with impunity. The precise number abducted remained uncertain. In an angry, anguished address delivered on live television, Abed Thiab al-Ajili, the higher education minister and a member of the country’s largest Sunni political bloc, told Parliament that 100 to 150 people had been taken; ministry officials said they included Sunnis, Shiites, Kurds and Christians. A similar figure was given by the Shiite ministry official who was released. His figure, though, appeared to be based on a rough count of the people working in the building and visitors, rather than an accurate head count of those abducted. The American military command, which sent troops to the site of the kidnappings, said its investigation showed that the number of men taken was about 55. It also said there were indications that the kidnapping victims had been taken to the Baladiyat district in eastern Baghdad, a predominantly Shiite neighborhood on the southern fringe of Sadr City about three miles from the building where they were seized. The fact that the kidnappers took captives from a wide cross-section of Iraq‘s cultural and religious groups created some confusion about their motives, though many previous kidnappings have followed a similar pattern. In his speech to Parliament, Mr. Ajili, the higher education minister, skirted the question of whether the kidnapping was motivated by sectarian hatred. But he suggested that the Maliki government was incompetent, if not complicit in the abductions. He said he had repeatedly asked the government for additional security to protect the ministry and members of the university community, who have been favorite targets for assassination since the toppling of Saddam Hussein. According to a tally by The Associated Press, more than 150 educators have been killed, and thousands of others have fled the country. “I told the M.O.I. and M.O.D. if you can’t protect the universities, give me 800 recruits and I will do this mission,” Mr. Ajili said, referring to the Ministries of Interior and Defense. “But they rejected the idea.” Shiite leaders have often said that kidnappers who have been linked to the Interior Ministry have in fact been criminal thugs, or even Sunni insurgents, who have acquired the military-style uniforms used in the attack from street markets where they are widely available. Basil al-Khateed, a spokesman for the Higher Education Ministry, counseled against hasty conclusions. “It’s not clear if this kidnapping was sectarian or not,” he said. Witnesses said the gunmen arrived at the ministry about 9:30 a.m. in a long line of vehicles that appeared to be on police business. “I saw around 30 Interior Ministry vehicles which did not have license plates close the road, and then the commandos stepped out of their vehicles,” said one man who worked in a government agency nearby but asked not to be identified. Mr. Khateed, the ministry spokesman, said the gunmen told ministry guards and onlookers that the American ambassador was arriving. The ministry official who was later released said he was in his office inside the building. The gunmen, in the blue camouflage uniforms worn by police commandos, flooded into the building, the official said, and told him they were from the government’s integrity commission, an agency that investigates corruption. Suddenly, however, the gunmen cocked their weapons and yelled for everyone to stay where they were, the official said. They gathered the women in one room, before eventually letting them go, Mr. Ajili, the minister, said, but not before taking their cellphones and sorting through them for newer models, which they stole, leaving older models behind. He said the men taken captive had their hands bound behind them and their eyes blindfolded before being taken out to the pickup trucks. Iraqi police and army units in the area did nothing to stop the abductions, witnesses and officials said, either because they believed the gunmen were legitimate commandos, or, some suggested, because they were part of a preset plan. “We are astonished by this,” said Saleem Abdulla, a lawmaker from the Iraqi Consensus Front, the main Sunni bloc in Parliament. “It just seems so odd. How can people kidnap about 100 people like that, in daylight?” He added: “And what about the vehicles? What about the checkpoints? Aren’t we in a state of emergency? And no one can trace these people? No one can follow them to find out who they are? It is very odd. We think there has to be some link between these gangs and powerful men in the M.O.I.” The released Shiite official, who spoke later on Iraqi television but did not give his name, said the gunmen yelled at motorists to clear the road as they headed east through the traffic from the ministry building. The official said the gunmen had taken their captives into a large hall with a concrete floor, then began to quiz each of them, demanding their names, often an indicator of their sect, as well as identity cards. “They split us into two groups,” he said. “The first group, they said, ‘We will release you.’ The second group, ‘We will keep you for additional investigation.’ They put me in the group that would be released. When they said that, I thought, no, they will kill me. I was sure they would kill me. They were shouting, ‘We will kill everyone who doesn’t listen to us.’ ” But the gunmen put him and the others in his group back onto the pickup trucks, and drove them elsewhere, the official said. There, he said, they were told to sit on the ground and not move, and warned that anyone removing a blindfold would be killed. But after 10 minutes of silence, he said, one of the men in the group mustered the courage to clear his eyes, and told the others they were safe. “We don’t know why they took us, and why they released us,” the official said. “It’s a terrorist operation with a big criminal ring that planned this.” Elsewhere, a car bomb exploded near a busy market in the capital, killing 10 people and wounding 25 others, an Interior Ministry official said. Late Monday and into Tuesday, clashes erupted between members of the Mahdi Army militia and American troops, leaving six civilians dead and 13 wounded, an Interior Ministry official said. The police found 25 bodies dumped across the city on Tuesday, the official said. <NYT_AUTHOR_ID> Reporting was contributed by Ali Adeeb, Khalid al-Ansary, Qais Mizher, Omar al-Neami, Kirk Semple and Sabrina Tavernise. Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

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