On the morning of Sunday, February 4th, Sharafi drove his Toyota into central Baghdad to inspect the site of an important project, the Bank Melli. The opening date was set for February 11th, the anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, and the Iranians had been preparing for weeks. New office furniture and computers had been shuttled in for the grand opening and the rooms were freshly painted. It was going to be the first foreign-owned bank in Iraq since 2003. The location was chosen carefully: Arasat Hindi is one of the city’s few functioning commercial districts, almost like a shopping center in an American suburb, with lower levels of sectarian violence. There are DVD shops, CD shops, clothes stores and restaurants. The country’s biggest cell phone company, Iraqna, has an office here. Immediately after the war in 2003, it wasn’t uncommon to see American soldiers strolling the sidewalk and browsing the cigar shops. These days, only about half of the shops are open on weekdays; most of them close up by around 3 p.m.
Sharafi, a middle-aged man with an average build, was leaving on a break back to Tehran soon and wanted to take home a present for his daughter. He was used to shuttling between the two capitals; he had already served in Baghdad for two years. Most of the officials at the embassy work one-month rotations. “We’re constantly coming and going,” says one official who asked not to be identified because he wasn’t authorized to speak on the record. Sharafi had bought a hand-held video game for his daughter but was hoping to pop into an electronics shop that morning to exchange it.
Around 10:30 a.m., Sharafi went to an electronics shop, either an LG or Sony dealership, to exchange the video game. His bodyguards went with him. Twenty or thirty attackers stormed the neighborhood a short time later. They came in four armored cars-two GMCs, a BMW and a Range Rover-and wore bulletproof vests. They also wore the uniform of the Iraqi National Guard. The stunned Iranian bodyguards were shown official IDs and decided to stand down. Sharafi was handcuffed and thrown into the Range Rover. A short time later, an Iraqi police unit began chasing the convoy and opened up on the BMW. “There was very heavy shooting,” says an official from the Iranian embassy who wasn’t authorized to speak on the record. “I saw the BMW and it’s full of holes.”
At approximately 11 a.m., Abu Ali, a 44-year-old fine arts teacher, heard the heavy shooting at an Internet café about half a mile away. “It sounded like a clash between two sides,” Abu Ali said. The worried owner of the Internet café got up and locked the door. The shooting, which sounded like AKs, lasted for more than fifteen minutes. Abu Ali heard the shops closing up one by one. By the time he left the cafe, the street was deserted and the shops were closed up. Two police cars blocked access roads into the central part of Arasat and the atmosphere was very tense. “I felt I had to leave that place as soon as possible,” Abu Ali said.
After the clash, four men in the BMW were captured by the Iraqi police. But the rest of the convoy got away. The Iranians were quick to point fingers. “We believe this was a group directly under American supervision,” the same official said. The Americans denied any involvement in Sharafi’s kidnapping at the time. “To be very clear about this, we abide by and support the Vienna convention for diplomats,” Lou Fintor, the spokesman for the US embassy in Baghdad, said during a telephone conference a few days after Sharafi’s disappearance. “There have been a lot of questions whether or not we respect the convention.” The military issued a similar denial through Lt. Col. Chris Garver, the director of the military press office, on February 7th: “We cannot confirm the diplomat’s abduction-I would recommend going to the Government of Iraq for confirmation of the abduction. We have checked with our subordinate units and have no record of any event that looks remotely like the described abduction. If this abduction did happen, we have no evidence it was conducted by an MNF-I unit or any of the Iraqi units with which we are associated. We have no updated information concerning this matter.” In fact, at the time, the only confirmation that the kidnappers may have had government ties came from Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari. “The kidnappers belong to some government entity but there is confusion to establish the kind of affiliation,” Zebari said in a press briefing a few days after the kidnapping. “They were part of a unit. The unit commander said they have been dismissed.”
In an interview shortly after the kidnapping, Abdul Karim Inizi, the former minister of state for security affairs, said the group responsible for the kidnapping is the Iraqi 36 th Commando Battalion, part of the Iraqi Special Operations Forces Brigade. This battalion was patched together from a handful of militias loyal to various exile parties and are considered the cream of the crop among the Iraqi security forces. Asked about these charges, a senior Coalition advisor said, “It’s plausible.” The Iraqi SF brigade, about 3,000 soldiers in all is based at Baghdad airport where they also have a school. They specialize in snatch raids. “Their main function is not to go out and kill somebody,” the Coalition advisor said. “It’s to go out and capture somebody.” The soldiers in the unit are well trained but they don’t have the communications or logistical support to carry out full raids on their own, this advisor said. Their chain of command isn’t completely removed from the Ministry of Defense; they get their funds and equipment through the MOD. But they are under the operational command of the Americans, specifically American special-forces officers. “How soon will they be able to operate independent of the Americans?” the advisor asked. “Probably not less than a year.”
If Sharafi was indeed held by forces under the control of the Americans, is it possible that his release is a prelude to the release of the British navy crew?
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