Iraqi gunmen snatch dozens

Baghdad: Policemen watched as gunmen in Iraqi police uniforms rounded up dozens of men at a government building in central Baghdad on Tuesday, in the biggest mass kidnapping seen in a city becoming used to such violence.

"They gathered them all in the pick-ups. At the same time I saw two police patrols watching, doing nothing," a witness said.

An Interior Ministry spokeswoman said that dozens of men - "100 or maybe 150" - had been rounded up, including many visitors to Higher Education Ministry building.

The gunmen, who arrived in new pick-up vehicles, stormed the ministry's Research Directorate building in Karrada, and separated the men from the women.

The militants took away their cellphones and made off with the men.

Numerous mass kidnappings have been blamed on sectarian militias operating either within the security forces or with the help of police in providing equipment.

The Shiite-controlled interior ministry denies any connection to insurgents linked to sectarian death squads and kidnapping, but it has faced suspicion from Washington and Sunni Arabs in the past.

There has been a spurt in sectarian violence in recent days. On Monday alone, 46 bodies were found and the morgue says it is taking in about 50 unclaimed bodies a day.