Gunmen kill senior Iraqi official

Gunmen yesterday assassinated a senior Iraqi Interior Ministry official who had told the media that a hostage crisis that fuelled sectarian tensions was exaggerated, police said.

Police said 10 gunmen entered the home of Major-General Adnan Thabet in Baghdad and killed him and his nephew.

Iraqi forces searched for hostages in a town south of Baghdad yesterday but found scant evidence of captives or gunmen despite claims by Shi'ite politicians that 150 people had been held.

The Shi'ite leaders exaggerated the scale of any hostage crisis in an attempt to gain political leverage over Sunni rivals, government officials said, as negotiations to form a government drag on months after elections on January 30.

Confusion over events - including if any hostages were ever held by anyone - has underlined how out of touch Iraq's authorities have become as the political vacuum deepens.

Troops from the Interior Ministry's special commando unit searched Madaen, 40 kilometres southeast of Baghdad, for hours yesterday.

"We found no hostages and we have arrested no terrorists," Colonel Abu al-Jau, deputy commander of a commando brigade, told Reuters after a house-to-house search.

Hours before he was killed, Mr Thabet, said nine hostages had been freed, but it was not clear if they were related to the 150 people Shi'ite officials originally said were abducted by Sunni gunmen on Friday.

"The number of hostages has been greatly exaggerated," Mr Thabet told Reuters. However, searches did reveal several weapons caches, and Madaen's jail was found empty, he said.