Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
QAIS AL-BASHIR
Associated Press
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq's Olympic cycling coach was killed after gunmen kidnapped him from his home in the latest attack on one of the nation's sports figures, officials said.
Family members identified the body of 48-year-old Mahoud Ahmed Fulayih at the central morgue in the capital on Monday, two days after he was abducted, said Hussein al-Amidi, the acting secretary general of Iraq's National Olympic Committee.
He said Fulayih was kidnapped three days after he returned with the cycling team from the Asian Games in Doha, Qatar. The team did not win any medals there.
"We lost another one. He is not a politician and has no link with any party," al-Amidi said. "It looks like no one is excluded from the violence."
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. Here are some recent cases:
_ Last month, the body of Hadib Majhoul, head of the popular Talaba club and a member of the Iraqi Soccer Federation, was found dead after he was seized by gunmen while driving to work.
_ In November, a blind Iraqi athlete and a Paralympics coach were kidnapped but released unharmed after sports officials said their abductors determined that neither was linked to the Sunni-dominated insurgency.
_ An Iraqi international soccer referee was recently abducted as he left the soccer association's offices. The kidnappers reportedly demanded $200,000 ransom.
_ Gunmen also killed a 37-year-old former national volleyball player, Naseer Shamil, in his shop in Baghdad, while 22-year-old Ghanim Ghudayer, a popular soccer player and member of the Iraqi Olympic team, was kidnapped in September.
_ In July, Iraq's national soccer coach, Akram Ahmed Salman, resigned after receiving death threats against him and his family.
That came shortly after gunmen kidnapped Ahmed al-Hijiya, the chairman of the National Olympic Committee, and at least 30 other officials, including the presidents of the taekwondo and boxing federations, in a daylight raid on a sports conference in Baghdad. The group is still being held.
_ Iraq's national wrestling coach, a Sunni, was killed around the same time in a Shiite district of Baghdad.