BEIJING, Nov. 14 (Xinhuanet) -- Gunmen wearing Iraqi police commando uniforms stepped up pressure on the country's educational system Tuesday by kidnapping up to 150 staff members from a government research institute in downtown Baghdad, according to the head of the parliamentary education committee.

    Alaa Makki interrupted a parliamentary session to announce between 100 and 150 people, both Shiites and Sunnis, had been abducted in the 9:30 a.m. raid. He urged the prime minister and ministers of interior and defense to rapidly respond to what he called a "national catastrophe." Makki added that he will close universities until security improves.

    Included in the kidnapping were the institute's deputy general directors, employees, and visitors, Makki said.

    The abductions are the latest in a series of killings and other attacks on Iraqi academics that are robbing Iraq of its brain trust and prompting thousands of professors and researchers to flee to neighboring countries.

    A university dean and prominent Sunni geologist were murdered recently, bringing the death toll among educators to at least 155 since the beginning of the war. It appears academics have been targeted because of their relatively high public stature, vulnerability and known views on controversial issues in a climate of deepening Islamic fundamentalism.

    Police and witnesses said the raid began when gunmen closed roads around the institute in the downtown Karradah district.

    Police spokesman Maj. Mahir Hamad said the entire operation took about 20 minutes. Four guards at the institute put up no resistance and were unharmed, he said.

    Makki said the gunmen had a list of names and claimed to be on a mission from the government's anti-corruption body.

    A female professor visiting at the time of the kidnappings said the gunmen forced men and women into separate rooms, handcuffed the men, and loaded them aboard about six pickup trucks. She said the gunmen, some of them masked, wore blue camouflage uniforms of the type worn by police commandos.

    A Shiite lawmaker said there was little question Tuesday's incident was a mass kidnapping and blamed U.S. troops for the security lapse.

    "The detention of 150 people from a government institution without informing the higher education minister ... means this is an abduction operation," Ali al-Adib said. "There is a political goal behind this grave action."

    (Agencies)