Royals among Qataris kidnapped by gunmen in Iraq

Qatar in touch with Iraqi authorities after members of hunting party were snatched in pre-dawn raid.

Baghdad // At least 26 members of a Qatari hunting party including members of the royal family have been kidnapped by gunmen in southern Iraq, local officials said on Wednesday.

Dozens of gunmen “kidnapped 27 Qatari hunters ... when they were in a camp near the Bassiyah area,” said Faleh Al Zayadi, the governor of Muthanna province where they were seized.

“All of those kidnapped are Qatari and a number of members of the ruling family in Qatar are among them,” Mr Al Zayadi said, adding that the kidnappers used more than 50 vehicles mounted with machineguns.

Qatar’s foreign ministry has contacted the Iraqi government to obtain “details about the kidnapping of the Qatari citizens and to work to release them as quickly as possible”, it said in a statement carried by the official QNA news agency.

The assistant foreign minister for political affairs, Mohammed Al Rumaihi, has been dispatched to Baghdad to coordinate with Iraqi authorities “to ensure the safety of the Qatari nationals”, it said.

Mr Al Zayadi said two Iraqi officers providing security for the party were also taken but later released.

Other officials put the number of people kidnapped at 26.

“Twenty-six Qatari hunters were kidnapped at about 3am by unknown gunmen,” a police major from Muthanna province, where the kidnappings took place, said.

A local council member from the province gave the same number, saying “unknown gunmen in dozens of pickup trucks attacked a place where Qatari hunters were located”.

Qatar’s foreign ministry said the hunters entered Iraq with an official permit from the interior ministry.

Wealthy citizens of Arab Gulf states venture to countries including Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq to hunt with falcons.

There is significant hostility in Iraq, especially in the Shiite-majority south, over the Gulf countries’ policies on the Syrian civil war and perceived complicity in the rise of ISIL.

The extremist group has seized large areas of western and northern Iraq since June last year.

The kidnappings come a little over three months after gunmen seized 18 employees of a major Turkish construction firm working in Baghdad.

The Turkish workers were later freed unharmed.

* Agence France-Presse