BAGHDAD, Iraq - Four more people seized last weekend at a sports conference have been found blindfolded and dumped unharmed in an east Baghdad neighborhood, officials said Thursday. There was no word on the fate of Iraq's Olympic committee chairman.
Iraq's top Shiite cleric, meanwhile, called on Iraqis to work together to halt sectarian violence, warning that the future of the nation is at stake.
Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani said in a statement that Iraqis had avoided all-out civil war despite attacks on civilians because they belonged to "a certain sect," meaning Shiites.
But he said the Feb. 22 bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra had triggered the "blind violence we are seeing in the country today."
Also Thursday, the government announced that the state agency that cares for Shiite mosques was suspending work for five days in solidarity with their Sunni counterparts, who began a weeklong walkout the day before to protest the kidnappings of 20 of their employees.
The four former kidnap victims were found late Wednesday and included the director of public relations for the National Olympic Committee, Youssif Khoshaba, officials said. Six others were found in the same neighborhood Sunday, one day after at least 30 people were seized by armed men wearing police uniforms.
Among those still missing is National Olympic Committee chairman Ahmed al-Hijiya.
A wave of kidnappings and killings have alarmed many Iraqis and further sharpened tensions between Shiites and Sunnis.
Iraqis blame much of the violence on extremists in the two communities who target continued
But politics & religion make for strange bed-fellows.
The friend of my enemy is my friend?
