Iraq gunmen seize up to 100 from ministry building

BAGHDAD, Nov 14 (Reuters) Gunmen wearing Iraqi police commando uniforms kidnapped as many as 100 men from a Higher Education Ministry building in central Baghdad today, a spokeswoman for the ministry said.

She said gunmen arrived in new pick-up vehicles and stormed the ministry's Research Directorate building in Karrada, a religiously mixed neighbourhood.

They ordered all the women into one room, took away their cellphones, and seized the men, who included employees, guards and visitors to the office.

An interior ministry source had earlier put the number kidnapped at around 20.

The interior ministry, which is controlled by Shi'ites, has repeatedly denied any connection to militias blamed by Sunni Arabs and Washington for operating death squads and kidnapping cells.

The Higher Education Minister is a member of the Iraqi Accordance Front, a Sunni group in the government.

The kidnapping recalled a mass abduction in July when gunmen seized around 30 people from an Iraqi Olympics Committee meeting in a brazen daytime raid in Baghdad. Six were later released.

On that occasion the kidnappers were wearing blue camouflage uniforms of the type used by the Interior Ministry.

Sportsmen and academics have been frequent targets of violence.

Criminal gangs also kidnap people for ransom.

REUTERS MS KP1433