According to al-Ajili, the abductions took place at the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, Scholars and Cultural Relations Directorate in central Baghdad and involved up to 80 gunmen. The minister said the kidnappers surrounded the four-story building along Nidhal Street with at least 20 vehicles, taking captive guards, employees and civilians.

According to al-Ajili, the gunmen separated the men from the women, locking the women in a room, while they loaded the men into the vehicles and made their escape. Iraqis working for the new government have frequently been targeted by insurgents.

The abductions come a day after a suicide bomber wearing an explosives belt blew himself up inside a bus in northeastern Baghdad, killing 10 people and wounding 17 others, emergency police said. The attack took place around noon (4 a.m. ET) in the Shaab neighborhood. Later in the day, the U.S. military said American and Iraqi soldiers had conducted a series of raids over the past three days in which 24 suspected insurgents were arrested and a large cache of weapons seized.  

A raid Monday in Haswah, south of Baghdad, netted the arrests of six insurgents charged with attacks against Iraqi civilians and police, the military said. Nine others suspected of murder, kidnapping, extortion and car theft were arrested in raids in Haswah and the Baghdad area. The suspects' criminal activities were helping finance other insurgent cells, the military said.

After coming under rocket attack Sunday in Baghdad, U.S. soldiers captured two insurgents during a predawn patrol. Also Sunday, U.S. and Iraqi forces captured four insurgents suspected of murders, kidnappings and bomb attacks against Iraqi police and civilians, the military said.