BAGHDAD: Gunmen in Baghdad kidnapped an acting deputy justice minister of Iraq on Tuesday and wounded his driver, officials said.

A police colonel said black-clad kidnappers in several vehicles stopped Abdulkarim Fares’s car in the Binook area in the northeast of the city.

He said the driver was wounded by gunfire when he tried to intervene.

His “protection (force) was released, and now he is the only one kidnapped,” interior ministry spokesman Brig. Gen. Saad Maan told AFP, without saying how many guards he had.

A justice ministry official identified the man seized as Fares, saying he is an acting deputy minister as well as director general for financial and administrative affairs at the ministry.

The kidnapping came just four days after gunmen abducted 18 Turkish employees of a major construction firm in Sadr City, south of Binook.

The identity of the kidnappers in both cases is unknown.

Baghdad turned to mostly Shiite volunteer forces for support as Daesh advanced toward the capital in June last year, and they have played a key role in halting and then reversing the radicals’ gains.

But in doing so, the government also further empowered Shiite militias, some with checkered human rights records, and spurred the creation of new ones, allowing them to act with near impunity despite their officially falling under government command.