BAGHDAD, Iraq - Gunmen abducted a top Iraqi basketball official and a blind athletic coach, both Sunnis, on Wednesday, a day after US and Iraqi forces lifted a blockade on Baghdad's Shiite militia stronghold of Sadr City.

The attack took place at a youth club on relatively prosperous Palestine Street in eastern Baghdad near the Sadr City district, which is controlled by anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army. The militia has been linked to scores of abductions and torture killings of Sunnis.

A woman is comforted by a relative at the spot her husband was killed in a car bomb blast in Aqaba bin Nafea Square in central Baghdad, Iraq, Wednesday November 1, 2006. A total of five people died in the blast and 10 others were wounded. [AP]

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered military roadblocks dismantled Tuesday around the sprawling slum of 2.5 million. Al-Maliki acted under pressure from al-Sadr, whose political faction is a key part of the governing coalition.

Athletes and sports officials have increasingly become targets of threats, kidnappings and assassination attempts, with an Iraqi international soccer referee seized just last month as he left the soccer association's offices. The kidnappers reportedly demanded a $200,000 ransom.

Wednesday's attack on the coaches began when men in four SUVs drove up to the youth club, said police Lt. Ali Mohsin. They seized basketball federation chief Khalid Nejim, who also was a coach for the national basketball team, and Issam Khalef, who coached blind athletes.

While Nejim, 50, resisted the abductors, Khalef, who is blind and also serves as the captain for his goalball team, went with his captors quietly, said Qahtan al-Namei, chief of Iraq's Paralympics Federation.

Twelve people were in the club at the time - the coaches, seven blind players, a guard who was quickly disarmed, an assistant and a driver, al-Namei said.

He said it appeared only the coaches were taken because they were Sunnis, while the rest were Shiites. He said the kidnappers, who carried automatic weapons and wore no masks, had not demanded a ransom or otherwise contacted the federation.

"There is a distinct possibility that this was simply an act of violence targeting Iraqi sports," al-Namei said.

Despite the abductions, al-Namei said the team was determined to participate in a tournament for disabled athletes in Malaysia this month. Goalball is played by blind or visually impaired athletes using a ball that has bells inside that is thrown toward goals on a court.

Throughout the country at least 23 people were killed Wednesday. And north of Baghdad, which has become the main battlefield in Iraq's relentless sectarian struggle, police searched for 40 Shiites seized Tuesday on a dangerous stretch of road in a region with a mixed Shiite-Sunni population.

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