Some 50 gunmen swooped down on the oil ministry's cultural centre, a club in the middle-class neighbourhood of Karrada, where a meeting of the committee was taking place, said committee member Hussein al-Amidi who was present.

They neutralised the guards and drove off with committee head Ahmed al-Hajea, committee secretary general Amr Abdel Jabbar and the head of Iraq's Tae Kwon Do federation, Jamal Abdel Karim, he added.

Also seized were Saeb al-Hakim, the head of water sports in Iraq, and one of Hajea's bodyguards.

In May, 15 members of the national Tae Kwon Do team were kidnapped as they drove back from a tournament in Jordan through Anbar province in the restive west of the country. Their fate remains unknown.