It might have been a hoax.
The Iraq Model says:
"General Hikmat Mousa from the ministry of interior, discredited the news about more than a hundred people taken hostages in Mada'en and he stressed that news agencies had exaggerated the situation.
The general told "New Sabah" that three battalions from the special forces of the ministry of interior are positioned around the town and on the roads leading to it from al friyah, Khalsah and Al-Wahda suburbs.
He added that these forces are waiting for engineering and other support units to begin cleaning the town from weapons, IEDs and unexploded ammunitions. The operations will extend later to include the rest of the suburbs in the region south-east of Baghdad."
See "this fucking war" which has been keeping a close eye on this as well. [See link to the left.]
Posted by bushmeister0
at 12:35 PM EDT
Updated: Tuesday, 19 April 2005 12:36 PM EDT