Iraq state TV says most ministry hostages free

BAGHDAD, Nov 15 (Reuters) State television Iraqiya said most of the hostages seized at a Higher Education Ministry building had been freed in operations by security forces in Baghdad.

Iraqiya quoted an Interior Ministry spokesman as saying operations were continuing to free the remaining hostages.

Al Furat, a television station controlled by a major Shi'ite political group, said 25 hostages were still missing.

Officials initially said 100 or more men had been seized, but a government spokesman said later yesterday that 20 had been released within hours and the kidnappers were holding around 50 hostages.

Government and ministry spokesmen could not immediately be reached to confirm the reports most had been freed.

Gunmen in Iraqi police uniforms snatched male staff and visitors from the ministry building in a daylight raid that was among the most serious mass kidnappings in more than three years of violence since the 2003 US-led invasion.

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 annexe, 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. Some of those released earlier in the day said they were driven to Sadr City, a Shi'ite militia stronghold in eastern Baghdad, Higher Education Minister Abd Dhiab said.

Washington has been pressing Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to crack down on militias notionally loyal to his allies but Maliki says he needs more time. Many of Saddam Hussein's fellow Sunnis, and U.S. commanders, complain the Iraqi police is heavily infiltrated by Shi'ite militias.

Reuters PDS VP0517