Iraq’s minister of higher education escaped injury today when a roadside bomb exploded near his convoy in central Baghdad.

A suicide car bomb struck a market in the Shiite district of Sadr City and police said 17 people died today, a day after a blast targeting university students killed 70 in what appeared to be a renewed campaign of Sunni insurgent violence against Shiites.

About 70 victims of a mass kidnapping at an office of the Higher Education Ministry have been released, a ministry spokesman said today, but officials were unable to say how many remained captive.

Iraq’s prime minister has blamed the mass kidnapping at an education ministry building on an inter-militia conflict.

The Iraqi prime minister's office said only 45 to 50 people had been kidnapped in a lightning raid on a Baghdad higher education office today, and 20 of them had been released.