Gunmen kidnap senior ministry official in N Iraq

TIKRIT, Iraq, March 20 (Xinhua) -- Unknown gunmen abducted a senior official of an Iraqi ministry near a town in Salahudin province, a provincial police source said on Thursday.

"Ra'ad Shallal al-Hadithi, an advisor for the electricity minister, was kidnapped on Wednesday afternoon when armed men set up a faked checkpoint and intercepted his car in a desert area on the main road west of the town of Beiji, some 200 km north of Baghdad," the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

The desert area between Salahudin and Anbar provinces has long been a stronghold of the al-Qaida in Iraq network despite many offensives launched by U.S. and Iraqi security forces to clear the vast open area, the source said.