Mass kidnap at Baghdad ministry
By Aseel Kami and Alastair Macdonald
2 hours, 29 minutes ago
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Gunmen in Iraqi police uniforms snatched up to 100 staff and visitors from a ministry building in Baghdad on Tuesday, sparking a huge manhunt by a government struggling to control increasingly audacious sectarian militias.
Amid new suspicions of police complicity in the latest and biggest mass kidnapping, the interior minister hauled in police chiefs to explain how dozens of gunmen swept into the Higher Education Ministry annex, rounded up those inside, and drove them off in broad daylight toward a Shi'ite militia stronghold.
Women were left behind after having their mobile phones confiscated. One witness said police guards stood by as the gunmen separated minority Sunnis from Shi'ites by checking names on identity documents, although officials and other witnesses said it appeared men from both sects were taken away.
"Some of the men put up a struggle and begged the militants to leave them alone but one of them said 'Don't worry, if you've done nothing wrong we'll let you go'," a local shopkeeper said after the men were put into 40 vehicles in under half an hour.
Some were later freed but up to 50 hostages were still unaccounted for, the government said, renewing assurances that its new, U.S.-trained security forces can bring order.
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