An al-Qaeda-linked group today showed pictures of 18 men it said had been kidnapped to avenge the alleged rape of a woman last month.
An Iraqi soldier mans a checkpoint from an armoured vehicle near a Sunni mosque during Friday prayers in Baghdad
The group said in an Internet statement it had kidnapped 18 men working for the Interior Ministry in Diyala province, north of Baghdad.
The statement included photographs showing 18 men, some in uniform and some in civilian clothing, blindfolded in a room. Some of the men had what appeared to be identity papers pinned to their shirts.
A police source in Diyala said 14 Iraqi police officers left their base in western Baquba around 11am yesterday to return home but that no one had seen them since.
Interior Ministry officials in Baghdad said they had no information on the reports of the kidnapping in Diyala, which has suffered previous mass kidnappings and ambushes of police at their bases and in convoys.
Sunni Arabs in the province say the police are infiltrated by militias.
Elsewhere, a car bomb today killed 10 people and wounded 17 in Habibiya, a district in the Shia militia stronghold of Sadr City in Baghdad, a police source said.
A Reuters photographer said the explosion ripped through a used car market in Sadr City, a Shia militia stronghold in northeast Baghdad. Residents said 11 people had been killed.