The deaths of 100 people over the past 24 hours in Iraq and the abduction of a deputy health minister has piled pressure on Iraq's government to halt the growing sectarian violence.
The past week has seen sectarian tensions come to a head inside Iraq's national unity government, which has yet to make headway on key issues six months after taking office on May 20th.
A junior minister from Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's party was seized from his home by men in uniform yesterday, one of the most senior figures to fall victim to a kidnapping spree.
It was one of several attacks this week by gunmen that cast doubts on the loyalties of Iraqi security forces.
Gunmen today attacked the convoy of Iraqi deputy health minister Hakim al-Zamily in Baghdad today and killed two of his guards. Mr Zamily was not injured.
A second leading politician from the dominant Shia bloc was assassinated on Saturday, and a suicide bomber killed 22 poor Shia labourers yesterday in an attack that a Sunni Islamist group said was revenge for a mass kidnap of civil servants last week by suspected Shia militiamen.
The Shia-led Interior Ministry has rejected assertions by the Sunni-run Higher Education Ministry that around 60 people are still missing and some were tortured and killed after being snatched by men in police uniform at their office last week.
Witnesses have said the gunmen took the civil servants to Sadr City, a stronghold of the Mehdi Army, a Shia militia loyal to anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, whose movement provides key support to Mr Maliki.
Few Iraqis put much faith in their US-trained security forces, which Washington hopes can stand up to the militants, and US commanders concede these forces are heavily infiltrated by militants.
US forces have also been searching for four weeks for a kidnapped US soldier.
Another 45 bodies were found in Baghdad yesterday, police said, most victims of kidnappers and death squads.