BAGHDAD, Iraq - Gunmen kidnapped the head of Iraq's Olympic committee and at least 30 employees Saturday after storming a meeting of sports officials just days after the coach of Iraq's national wrestling team was killed.

The gunmen were riding in three government vehicles and wearing police uniforms when they broke into a cultural center in central Baghdad, police Lt. Thaer Mahmoud said.
Mahmoud said Ahmed al-Hijiya, president of the committee, was taken around 1:30 p.m. along with other employees as they attended a conference in Karradah, a Shiite neighborhood in Baghdad.

A boy cries after his father was among soldiers killed at an army checkpoint in Kirkuk, about 250 km (150 miles) north of Baghdad, July 14, 2006. Gunmen ambushed an Iraqi army checkpoint in northern Iraq on Friday, killing 12 soldiers and wounding one, in one of the deadliest single attacks in months against the U.S.-trained Iraqi forces. [Reuters]

Others seized included the deputy head of the Olympic committee, Ammar Jabbar al-Saadi; the chairman of the Taekwondo Federation, Jamal Abdul-Karim; and the chief of the Boxing Federation, Union Bashar Mustafa.

The director of sports medicine, Dr. Faleh Francis, was originally reported to be among those kidnapped, but state-run television later said he was not part of the group.

Security guards outside the meeting did not interfere because they thought the kidnappers were legitimate law enforcement, police said.

The kidnappings of Iraq's Olympic officials comes a day after Iraq's national wrestling team pulled out of a tournament in the United Arab Emirates when its coach was killed in Baghdad.

The Sunni coach, Mohammed Karim Abid Sahib, was seized with one of his wrestlers as they left the sports center to buy some sweets in the northern neighborhood of Kazimiyah, where the team was preparing for the tournament.

He was shot to death while trying to escape; the other wrestler got away, according to police and wrestling officials.

Elsewhere in Baghdad on Saturday, clashes broke out between Iraqi soldiers and gunmen in several areas of the city, leaving at least three people dead and 11 others wounded, police said.

Seven people were injured in a mortar attack near Haifa Street in downtown Baghdad, just blocks from the Green Zone which houses U.S. and British embassies and the Iraqi government. All were hospitalized, police 1st. Lt. Muhammad Khayoun said.

Similar clashes also broke out blocks away in the capitol, injuring four and killing two civilians. U.S. troops rushed to seal the area after the attacks, said Iraqi Army Maj. Salman Abdul-Wahid.

The area along Haifa Street has seen heavy violence in recent weeks, which prompted Iraqi leaders to declare a state of emergency in Baghdad after erratic violence erupted there nearly a month ago.

Also Saturday, Iraq's parliament voted to extend the state of emergency for 30 days, a measure that has been in place for almost two years.

The violence comes as the conflict between Israel and Lebanon escalates, which has been condemned by Iraqi leaders who are fearful ramifications could be felt throughout the region.

Thousands of Iraqis also demonstrated in the Shiite district of Sadr City in Baghdad and the southeastern cities of Kut and Amarah, praising the leaders of Hezbollah and denouncing Israel and the United States.

In other violence Saturday:

- Gunmen attacked a truck carrying sheep on a highway in western Baghdad, killing the driver, police Lt. Maitham Abdul-Razzaq said. 

- Provincial police in Ramadi on Saturday also confirmed that a day earlier gunmen had killed a member of the Iraqi Islamic Party. 
- Gunmen open fire on minivan in southeastern Baghdad, killing five people. 
- A bomb exploded at an Internet cafe in Kirkuk in northern Bomb, killing one.