Baghdad violence spreads to pitch

BAGHDAD, Iraq – The bullet-ridden body of the Sunni Arab chairman of one of Iraq’s leading soccer clubs was found Sunday, several days after he was kidnapped in the capital, police said.

Hadib Majhoul, the head of the popular Talaba club and a member of the Iraqi Soccer Federation, was the latest in a series of deadly attacks on sports figures amid Iraq’s sectarian violence.

Majhoul was seized late Thursday by gunmen in two cars who intercepted him while he was going to work, said Tariq Ahmed, an official with the federation. Police said he was kidnapped in northern Baghdad, but did not elaborate.

Police recovered Majhoul’s body Sunday in a neighborhood of western Baghdad and brought it to a morgue where it was identified by relatives, said police 1st Lt. Ali Muhsin.

Athletes and sports officials have increasingly become targets of threats, kidnappings and assassination attempts in Iraq, either as part of retaliatory violence between Shiites and Sunnis or for ransom.

On Saturday, International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge appealed for the release of Ahmed al-Hijiya, the chairman of Iraq’s National Olympic Committee, who was kidnapped in July along with at least 30 of his colleagues.