An Iraqi deputy electricity minister, kidnapped by gunmen on Tuesday along with 19 bodyguards, has been released, Interior Ministry sources in Iraq said.
Raad al-Harith was freed with seven of his bodyguards in the same area where he was kidnapped in eastern Baghdad earlier today.
Harith was travelling in Talbiya district outside the heavily fortified Green Zone compound that houses the government and foreign embassies, when gunmen in camouflaged uniforms stopped his convoy, police said.
The attackers were driving seven cars.
Details of the kidnapping were sketchy, but police said it appeared the bodyguards had not resisted, believing that it was an official operation.
Gunmen in camouflage uniforms have been linked to many shootings and kidnappings of Sunnis in Baghdad. The Sunni minority once dominant under Saddam Hussein has accused Shia militias of running death squads.
The abduction, the second of a politician in three days, was a blow to attempts by Shia Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's new national unity government to show Iraqis that it is coming to grips with the relentless insurgent and sectarian violence.