Gunmen seize 100 at Iraq ministry

BBC
Nov. 16, 2006

Gunmen in military-style uniforms have kidnapped more than 100 men from a research institute belonging to Iraq's higher education ministry.

A ministry spokeswoman said the gunmen arrived in new pick-up vehicles and stormed the ministry's Research Directorate in central Baghdad.

They ordered women into one room and seized the men, including employees, guards and visitors to the building.

Academics and researchers have been frequent targets of violence in Iraq.

Correspondents say many Iraqis believe mass kidnappings like this latest incident are committed by members of the Shia Muslim-dominated security forces or take place with their collusion.

Higher Education Minister Abd Dhiab said teaching in Baghdad's universities would be halted until the security situation improved.

In other developments:

A blast at Baghdad's Shurja market kills 10 people and wounds 25, police say

Overnight US raid killed six people in mainly-Shia east Baghdad, sparking angry anti-US protests

Thirty died in US raid on Sunni stronghold of Ramadi, Iraqi officials say.

Identities checked

The head of the parliamentary education committee, Alaa Makki, interrupted a televised parliamentary session with the news and urged the prime minister and interior and defence ministers to respond rapidly to what he called a "national catastrophe".

Mr Makki said the abductees had been both Shias and Sunnis and had been seized by gunmen claiming to be working for the government's anti-corruption body.

However, a civil servant who said he was returning to the building at the time of the abduction, described gunmen lining up the male staff in the car park and checking their identity cards.

"They picked only the Sunni employees. They even took the man who was just delivering tea," said the eyewitness in an interview with Reuters news agency.

"They gathered them all in the pick-ups. At the same time, I saw two police patrols watching, doing nothing," he said.

The gunmen reportedly closed off roads around the institute in Karrada district and took away their captives in handcuffs.

The higher education minister is a member of main Sunni Arab political bloc in Iraq - where most ministries are fiefdoms of the various sectarian groups.