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Four more people seized last weekend at a sports conference have been found blindfolded and dumped unharmed in an east Baghdad neighborhood, officials said Thursday. There was no word on the fate of Iraq's Olympic committee chairman.

Iraq's top Shiite cleric, meanwhile, called on Iraqis to work together to halt sectarian violence, warning that the future of the nation is at stake.

Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani said in a statement that Iraqis had avoided all-out civil war despite attacks on civilians because they belonged to "a certain sect," meaning Shiites.

But he said the Feb. 22 bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra had triggered the "blind violence we are seeing in the country today."

Also Thursday, the government announced that the state agency that cares for Shiite mosques was suspending work for five days in solidarity with their Sunni counterparts, who began a week-long walkout the day before to protest the kidnappings of 20 of their employees.

The four former kidnap victims were found late Wednesday and included the director of public relations for the National Olympic Committee, Youssif Khoshaba, officials said. Six others were found in the same neighborhood Sunday, one day after at least 30 people were seized by armed men wearing police uniforms.

Among those still missing is National Olympic Committee chairman Ahmed al-Hijiya.

A wave of kidnappings and killings have alarmed many Iraqis and further sharpened tensions between Shiites and Sunnis.

Iraqis blame much of the violence on extremists in the two communities who target members of the other sect in tit-for-tat attacks that have pushed the country to the brink of civil war.

In a gesture of solidarity, the government said the Shiite Endowment stopped working Thursday for five days and denounced the kidnapping of the employees of the Sunni Endowment. The head of the Sunni agency, Ahmed Abdul Ghafour al-Samaraie, blamed "militias in official uniforms" for seizing the workers.

Al-Sistani warned that if the violence continues, it "will harm the unity of the people and hinder their hopes of liberation and independence for a long time."

"I call on all those who are keen for the unity and future of this country, religious and political leaders, tribal chiefs and others, to exert maximum efforts to stop the bloodletting," al-Sistani said.

(Chinadaily.com via agencies July 21, 2006)