The head of Iraq's Olympic committee has been abducted by gunmen in Iraq.
About 50 gunmen swooped on a Baghdad club and kidnapped Committee president Ahmed al-Hejea and dozens of others as parliament extended a state of emergency across most parts of the country.
The committee's secretary general Amr Abdel Jabbar, the head of Iraq's Tae Kwon Do federation, Jamal Abdel Karim, the head of water sports, Saeb al-Hakim and dozens of security guards were abducted in an operation that took just a few minutes.
Dressed in military uniforms, the gunmen stormed the oil ministry's cultural centre, a club in the middle-class neighbourhood of Karrada, where the group was meeting.
The security guards at the club were no match for the attackers, who killed two guards and injured four in the attack.
