Six kidnapped near Bigley's Iraqi home

Gunmen stormed the compound of a Saudi company in Baghdad today and seized an American, a Nepalese and four Iraqi guards after a gunbattle in which two people were killed.

The US Embassy confirmed that an American had been abducted in the shootout in the Mansour district but did not identify him. One Iraqi guard and one of the attackers were killed, police said.

Lt Col Maan Khalaf said the attackers arrived in three cars around iftar, the traditional sunset meal which breaks the daylong Muslim fast during Ramadan.

The kidnappers stormed the two-storey house, surrounded by an outer wall with iron bars, and forced the victims to leave with them.

“We heard gunfire. I went outside to see what’s going on when a man pointed a machine gun at me and said: ’Get in or else, I’ll shoot at you’,” said Haidar Karar, who lives in the neighbourhood.

From his house he saw “at least 20 attackers, some masked and some not”. He said some were wearing traditional Arab robes and all were carrying automatic weapons.

US and Iraqi forces sealed off the street in the Mutanabi area.

The offices where the hostages were abducted is about 500 yards from the home of Briton Ken Bigley and two Americans kidnapped by militants in September. All three were later killed.

The latest victims are believed to work for the Saudi Arabian Trading and Construction Company, or Satco. The company provides food to the Iraqi army and others.

Twelve Americans have been kidnapped or are missing in Iraq. At least three of them have been killed – all beheaded in abductions claimed by an al Qaida-linked group led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

On Saturday authorities found the decapitated body of another hostage, 24-year-old Japanese backpacker Shosei Koda. Al-Zarqawi’s al-Qaida in Iraq group said it had kidnapped Koda and demanded a withdrawal of Japanese troops from the country.