Wüstenschiff

Gunmen have kidnapped at least 27 Qatari hunters - including members of the ruling family - in a desert area of Iraq near the Saudi border, say police and the local governor. The attackers were driving dozens of four-wheel drive vehicles when they swept into the hunters' camp at dawn on Wednesday, officials said. They struck near Layyah, 190km (118 miles) from regional capital, Samawa. A wide-scale search has been launched for the attackers, police say [...] The aim of the abduction was "to achieve political and media goals", the interior ministry said. The remote area where the incident took place is highly tribal in nature and a Shia region, reports the BBC's Jim Muir in Beirut. The Shia political parties which dominate the Iraqi government are highly critical of Qatar's role in supporting Sunni rebels in Syria - so this is bound to be a serious diplomatic incident, he says.

A Qatari party of 26 hunters kidnapped in southern Iraq in 2015 has been freed and was being handed over to a delegation from Doha in Baghdad on Friday, officials said. Sources close to the negotiations said their release was part of a far-reaching regional deal involving the freeing of prisoners and the evacuation of civilians in neighbouring Syria [...] The group of hunters, believed to include one or several prominent members of the Qatari royal family, were kidnapped in mid-December 2015 during a hunting trip in the Muthanna govenorate of southern Iraq.