Just let me pencil in my kidnapping for this afternoon

Its no joke of course, but how must it feel to show up for work knowing at any moment you and your co-workers might be kidnapped right from behind your desk?

[Update below]

Gunmen wearing Iraqi police commando uniforms kidnapped as many as 100 men from a Higher Education Ministry building in central Baghdad on Tuesday, a spokeswoman for the ministry said.

She said gunmen arrived in new pick-up vehicles and stormed the ministry's Research Directorate building in Karrada, a religiously mixed neighbourhood.

They ordered all the women into one room, took away their cellphones, and seized the men, who included employees, guards and visitors to the office.

An interior ministry source had earlier put the number kidnapped at around 20.

The interior ministry, which is controlled by Shi'ites, has repeatedly denied any connection to militias blamed by Sunni Arabs and Washington for operating death squads and kidnapping cells.

The Higher Education Minister is a member of the Iraqi Accordance Front, a Sunni group in the government.

How do these people concentrate well enough to do their jobs? These aren't soldiers who are always watching out for each other.

[Update:] They are now saying the count could be as high as 150 kidnapped.

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