One of the wealthiest men in Iraq and his son were kidnapped from their home, with their five bodyguards murdered and laid out in the front garden with a bullet in the head, police said.

The latest kidnapping comes amid a recent spree of hostage-taking of both foreigners and a large numbers of Iraqis, many seized for ransom.

Ghalib Kubba had just returned from a trip with his family on Thursday night when gunmen wearing military uniforms broke into his house and seized him and his son, Hassan.

Police said the gunmen drove up in a minibus outside Kubba's two-storey walled villa in the wealthy neighborhood of Yarmuk in western Baghdad, but neighbors said they heard no gunfire.

A man named Mohammed, who later went inside to investigate, told AFP he found Kubba's five bodyguards laid out in the front garden in a pool of blood, each with a bullet through the head.

Kubba's wife, his daughter-in-law and his two grandchildren, were huddled inside the house, weeping. Soon after they called their driver, who spirited them away.

One of the most prominent citizens of Iraq's second city of Basra, Kubba was appointed in April 2003 by the British in the aftermath of the invasion to head the city council and help rebuild the city.

He is chairman of Al-Basra National Bank for Investment, and his son managing director. He also presides over the chamber of commerce and owns a number of other businesses.

Calls to the interior ministry's hotline reporting kidnappings jumped from nine a week in mid-December to 26 by mid-January, the US military said.

Observers in Iraq often attribute sudden spikes in kidnappings to a need for money by criminal gangs.

Elsewhere in Iraq, four policemen were wounded by a roadside bomb in the northern city of Kirkuk, and another policeman was hurt in a similar incident in Baghdad.

Four unidentified bodies of men who had been shot dead were also recovered Friday in the north of the capital.

In other developments, search-and-rescue teams were looking for a small private German plane that disappeared Thursday while en route from Baku, Azerbaijan, to Sulaimaniyah, in northern Iraq, with five Germans and an Iraqi aboard.

PHOTO CAPTION

Iraqi policemen help a wounded colleague shortly after their vehicle were hit by a roadside bomb in Baghdad February 18, 2006. (REUTERS)