Mass Abduction Highlights Iraqi Security Crisis

Uniformed men traveling in dozens of vehicles snatch more than 100 people from a government ministry .

Even by Baghdad standards, it was an incredibly brazen snatch. In broad daylight Tuesday morning, armed men wearing police-commando uniforms kidnapped more than 100 people from the research directorate of the Ministry of Higher Education. Eyewitnesses said the kidnappers arrived in a fleet of dozens of trucks with government markings, and took barely 15 minutes to complete what was obviously a carefully planned operation. They rounded up the directorate's employees, then locked all the women in one room before taking away the men.

The Iraqi government announced it had sacked five police commanders as a response to the kidnapping, but it was not immediately clear whether the commanders were being punished for negligence or criminality.