Baghdad kidnapping sows terror

Up to 30 men were hauled off at gunpoint from a branch of the Red Crescent medical aid agency in a smart downtown area by a gang of 50 gunmen sporting police uniforms, the second mass abduction in Baghdad in three days.

The hostage-takers, jumping out of around 10 pick-up trucks, raided the Red Crescent building in Karada in broad daylight, snatching between 20 and 30 men but leaving women behind, a security source said.

Iraqi police and US troops were rapidly drafted in to seal off the area and monitor all traffic in and out of the abduction zone.

Meanwhile, a short distance away another gang -- again in the uniforms of the Shiite-dominated security forces -- shot dead one Sunni local councillor and kidnapped three more from their car, a security official said.

The latest abduction came just three days after gunmen in military uniforms snatched dozens of businessmen from a commercial street in Baghdad, before releasing around 29 hostages, all Shias.

Against the bloody backdrop of the violence engulfing Iraq, Blair stood shoulder to shoulder with the country's beleaguered premier and gave strong backing to his efforts to reunite the war-torn nation.

He told Maliki that Britain will "stand four square behind you and the Iraqi people in ensuring that your democracy is not destroyed by terrorism, by sectarianism, by those who wish to live in hatred rather than peace."

British public support for the war has slipped amid mounting sectarian violence and military casualties, but Blair angrily dismissed the idea that the 2003 US and British invasion of Iraq had triggered the chaos.

Instead, he blamed "the same forces worldwide that are trying to prevent moderation, prevent modernisation, and prevent people expressing their will for democracy, through violence".

The US military also announced that three of its soldiers were killed by a bomb on Saturday, bringing the number of US fatalities in Iraq since the 2003 invasion to 2,944 according to an AFP count based on Pentagon figures.