BAGHDAD, 17 November 2006 — Kidnappers tortured many of the dozens of hostages seized from a government building and killed some of them, a minister said yesterday, warning he felt Iraq no longer had an effective government.

Higher Education Minister Abed Dhiab Al-Ujaili, a Sunni Arab member of the Shiite-led unity government, said some 75 hostages remained in captivity after the raid by militiamen wearing police-style uniforms, 40 of them his ministry’s staff.

“Those who were set free told us that a few of the hostages have been killed, while most of them were tortured,” he said. “I’m very much concerned about their welfare,” he said of the remaining hostages.

Ujaili’s comments came as the sectarian violence in the capital showed no let-up.

Gunmen stormed a bakery in the mixed Zayuniyah neighborhood and killed nine Shiite workers in the latest in a spate of attacks by Sunni insurgents on a trade that has traditionally been carried out by the majority community. Fifteen other civilians were killed in Iraq, including 10 in spate of shootings in Baquba, north of the capital.

Four more US soldiers have been killed in Iraq, the US military said yesterday, bringing to at least 10 the number killed over the past two days in gun battles and roadside bomb blasts around the country.

Two US soldiers were killed and two wounded in the eastern province of Diyala north of Baghdad when a bomb hit their vehicle during combat operations on Wednesday, the military said.

A third soldier was shot dead in an operation in the same province, the US military said. It was not clear whether the incidents were linked.

Another US soldier was shot dead in Baghdad on Tuesday, the military said, bringing to seven the number killed that day.

Ujaili said he was stepping down from the government until it secures the release of all hostages and takes action against Shiite militias suspected of infiltrating the security forces to carry out kidnappings and murders.

“The police force should be investigated and should put the right people in the right place,” he told the BBC. When asked if he felt there was currently no effective government in Iraq, the minister replied: “That’s right, I feel, yeah, there is no effective government.”

Embattled Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki, on a visit to neighboring Turkey, promised steps in the next few days to rein in the violence. “A package of measures to be enacted in the coming days is on the agenda in order to stop the blasts and the bombings,” he told reporters through an interpreter.

“We will not allow certain groups to be settling accounts between themselves,” he said.

On Wednesday, government spokesman Ali Al-Dabbagh had played down the mass abduction of higher education ministry staff and visitors, insisting that only 39 people had been abducted, of whom just two were still held captive.

The blow to the hard-won Sunni representation in Iraq’s national unity government came as the United States too piled on the pressure for more effective action against the Shiite militias.

The top US commander in the Middle East, Gen. John Abizaid, revealed that he had pressed Maliki to disband the militias “very soon,” only a day before the mass kidnapping. “He must disband the Shia militia,” Abizaid told a Senate committee Wednesday, referring to the Iraqi prime minister.

A freed hostage and an eyewitness said that the carloads of militiamen who carried out Tuesday’s mass abduction were wearing police uniforms.