Uniformed gunmen kidnap deputy oil minister

More than 50 gunmen dressed in Iraqi security forces uniforms broke into an oil ministry compound in Baghdad today and abducted a senior deputy of the oil minister and four other officials, a ministry spokesman and police said.

Abdel-Jabar al-Wagaa, the senior assistant to oil minister Hussain al-Shahristani, was spirited away by the gunmen in what were believed to be official military vehicles, said spokesman Assem Jihad.

An Interior Ministry official said a top official in the State Oil Marketing Organisation and three directors general in the operation also were kidnapped.

The official said five bodyguards were wounded in the raid on the State Oil Marketing Organisation complex on Palestine Street in eastern Baghdad.

Five Britons were seized on May 29 in a similar raid on Iraq’s Finance Ministry, not far from the oil marketing facility. They were taken by gunmen wearing police uniforms and have not been found.

Both government organisations are near the lawless Sadr City Shiite enclave, a stronghold of the Mahdi Army militia.

Jihad said the kidnappers were an “armed gang” and took the deputy minister from his home in the compound. He said the gunmen stole a number of cars from the compound, most of them belonging to the marketing organisation.

The names of those kidnapped with al-Wagaa could not immediately be confirmed.

The raid also was reminiscent of an attack by the Shiite militiamen, dressed as Interior Ministry commandos, who stormed a Higher Education Ministry office November 14 and snatched as many as 200 people. Dozens of those kidnap victims have never been found.