Iraqi ministers clash over mass kidnap

BAGHDAD, Nov 21 (Reuters) Nearly a week after gunmen in police uniforms stormed a government building and kidnapped dozens of civil servants, ministers in Iraq's fractured government cannot even agree on how many people were seized.

With sectarian divisions paralysing the Iraqi government, Washington has been pressing Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al- Maliki to crack down on militias linked to his allies.

Amid varying accounts of the kidnap, the government called a joint news conference yesterday with the ministers of higher education, interior and defence and a government spokesman.

The Shi'ite-held Interior Ministry has rejected assertions by the Sunni-run Higher Education Ministry that around 60 people are still missing after being snatched from the ministry by suspected militias last Tuesday.

At the news conference -- delayed for three hours while the ministers met in private -- each pledged their commitment to tracking down the kidnappers. But when asked to simply say how many people were kidnapped, there was no agreement.

Higher Education Minister Abd Dhiab said 145 to 150 male staff and visitors were taken. ''We have the names of those people,'' he said. ''We sent this list to the Interior Ministry.'' Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh rejected that.

''According to the investigation of the Interior Ministry, the total number could be around 60, a little more or less,'' he said, adding that investigations were continuing.

TORTURE Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani said the kidnap was not a sectarian attack since both Sunni and Shi'ite Arabs were among those kidnapped and among those released.

Defence Minister Abdel Qader Jassim said the security forces were hunting the kidnappers: ''We are in a state of war and in war all measures are permissible,'' he said.

Released hostages have said gunmen in police commando uniforms took them to Sadr City, a stronghold of the Mehdi Army, a Shi'ite militia loyal to anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, whose movement provides key support to the government.

The Higher Education Ministry says around 80 hostages have been released so far, with some reporting seeing others tortured and killed.

The kidnapping has fuelled Sunni Arab suspicions of police complicity in Shi'ite militia attacks. A suicide bombing that killed 22 Shi'ite workers in Hilla on Sunday was claimed by a Sunni Islamist group that said it was revenge for the kidnap.

At an Iraqi army conference yesterday, Maliki urged generals to reject sectarianism. ''We cannot be politicians by day and with the militias or terrorists ... by night,'' Maliki said.

Asked about the kidnap at another news conference yesterday, US military spokesman Major General William Caldwell acknowledged a ''wide variance'' in the numbers but referred questions to the Iraqi government, saying US troops had offered help but Iraqi authorities were ''taking the lead''.

Caldwell said it was a tactic of ''extremist elements'' to steal uniforms and ''masquerade'' as police.

''That's a tool that they're using, trying to discredit this government,'' he said.

REUTERS DKS PM0448