Kidnapping attempt foiled in Basra

BASRA / IraqiNews.com: An attempt to kidnap a chieftain in the city of Basra foiled on Wednesday, a police source said. “Unidentified gunmen tried to kidnap Sheikh Abdul Wahab al-Rubaei, the head of the southern region tribes union, from his house in al-Manawi region in Basra,” the source told IraqiNews.com. “The Sheikh and his family opened fire against them and forces them to escape,” he added. “Police forces cordoned off the area and started to track down on them,” he noted. Basra, 590 km (340 miles) south of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, has an estimated metropolitan population of 2,300,000 in 2008. Basra, a Shiite province with 20% of the population are Sunnis, is the cradle of the first civilization of Sumer. It has the seven main Iraqi ports. The first built in Islam 14 A.H. (After Hegira), the city played an important role in early Islamic history. The area surrounding Basra has substantial petroleum resources and many oil wells. The city’s oil refinery has a production capacity of about 140,000 barrels per day (bpd). The only Iraqi outlet to the sea, Basra is in a fertile agricultural region, with major products including rice, maize corn, barley, pearl millet, wheat and dates as well as livestock. A network of canals flowed through the city, giving it the nickname “The Venice of the Middle East” at least at high tide. The only Iraqi outlet to the sea, Basra has the commercial ports of Iraq. SH (S) 1