Baghdad, Iraq – Gunmen attacked the offices of a construction company in western Baghdad on Wednesday, killing eight people, the third consecutive day a private business has been assaulted.
Separately, police said they found the bodies of 17 men who had been blindfolded, bound and shot at two locations in the capital.
In all, at least 41 people were reported killed in violence throughout the country.
Some experts believe this is part of a new brand of violence – a deadly mix of organized crime and sectarian murder – tearing at Iraq.
Its origins are murky. But the savagery has turned March into a pivotal month in the three-year war – a month of gruesome news, mixed with some good.
A sharp decline in American deaths appears to be the payoff for handing more duties to the Iraqi army, leaving U.S. forces less exposed to attack.
At the same time, there has been the rise in the slayings of civilian Iraqis, the reasons for which are hard to find.
Some Iraqi officials believe that the insurgents simply switched their targets, moving from American and Iraqi troops to targeting businesses and Iraqi civilians as a way to cause chaos or to fund their terror work.
Either way, the staggering shift makes it difficult to predict how the U.S. military will or can react to the new climate of violence, and what it might mean for hopes to begin a troop pullout this summer.
A spokesman for the Interior Ministry said a group of masked gunmen in civilian clothes came to Al Ibtikar Construction Co. in western Baghdad’s Dawoodi neighborhood at about noon.
According to witness accounts, he said, guards at the company opened fire on the men, who responded with a furious barrage, killing eight of the company’s employees, including three women.
Although the rash of kidnappings had the hallmarks of an extortion racket or abductions for ransom, police said they did not know the assailants’ motives.
Police say as many as 30 people a day are reported kidnapped in Iraq, although they believe that figure to be lower than the actual number of people abducted because many families prefer to pay for the release of their loved ones rather than contact police.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
