Story Highlights • British Prime Minister Tony Blair arrives in Baghdad for talks with Iraqi PM
• More than two dozen Iraqi Red Crescent visitors and employees kidnapped
• U.S. says security ceded to Iraqi forces in Najaf province by next Thursday
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BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- British Prime Minister Tony Blair arrived in Iraq on an unannounced stop in his Middle East tour and pledged his continued support for the new Iraqi government against those who seek to derail it.
But as Blair flew to Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone on a military helicopter, news broke of yet another mass kidnapping, carried out by gunmen in Iraqi army uniforms at the office of the Iraqi Red Crescent.
Blair's comments came after he held talks with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in a visit designed to boost fragile attempts to halt Iraq's ceaseless violence. (Watch Tony Blair pledge his support for Iraqi government )
Speaking at a joint news conference Blair said the two leaders discussed the great need for national unity as al-Maliki hosted a two-day national reconciliation conference in Baghdad. (Full story)
They also talked about building up Iraqi security forces, Blair said, an operation that is seeing some success in Basra, where most of the British troops in the country are based.
Blair also spoke of the importance of regional support of the struggling Iraqi government, saying that was one of the keys to its success.
"I think it's important that we exercise all the pressure and authority that we can have to make sure that all countries in the region are supporting Iraq, and supporting its people and its democracy," Blair said.
"And there is a very strong obligation, which is set in the United Nations resolution, for all countries in the region to be supportive of the prime minister and his government and the Iraqi people and not undermine them.
"I can assure that during the course of ... the weeks and months ahead I will be making that very clear and I believe the international community should do the same."
Al-Maliki agreed, saying it was a regional and international responsibility to protect the new democracy from the "elements that don't want to see light and don't want to see democracy in the region."
Blair also met Iraqi President Jalal Talabani before traveling to the southern city of Basra, where most of the approximately 7,000 British forces are based.
Britain has the largest commitment of any country after the United States. More than 120 British personnel have died in the country.
Blair's trip, his sixth to Iraq since the U.S.-led 2003 invasion, was not announced in advance for security reasons.
Mass kidnapping
Meanwhile, Iraqi security forces were searching for more than two dozen kidnapped Iraqi Red Crescent visitors and employees. The kidnapping was confirmed by Red Crescent officials and an interior ministry official.
The gunmen arrived at the offices in more than 20 vehicles around 11 a.m. local time and stormed the building, a spokesman for the aid organization told CNN. The interior ministry official put the number of abductors' vehicles at eight.
They forced between 25 and 30 men into the vehicles and left without firing a single shot, the spokesman said. Among the kidnapped were three Iraqi security guards at the Dutch embassy building in Baghdad, the Dutch Foreign Ministry said, according to The Associated Press.
Women were not taken. Neither were personnel from the International Committee of the Red Cross, which carries out much of its work in Iraq through the Red Crescent, Reuters reported.
The director of ICRC operations said he could not recall another instance in which the Red Crescent had been so targeted, AP reported.
"It is unacceptable and contrary to the most basic principles of humanity and law to target persons not participating in the hostilities, Pierre Kraehenbuehl said in Geneva, according to AP. "And this includes clearly the staff of humanitarian organizations such as the Iraqi Red Crescent."
Several Iraqi police patrols and checkpoints were in the area, the Interior Ministry official said, but it was assumed the kidnappers were a legitimate force.
The Iraqi commandos are part of the interior ministry forces which have in the past been accused of running death and kidnapping squads.
The kidnapping comes days after a senior official from the Iraqi Red Crescent, Dr. Jamal al-Karbouli, claimed that harassment from U.S. forces posed a great threat to his group's work than insurgent attacks.
The Iraqi Red Crescent offices are located in Al-Andalus square in central Baghdad, very close to the Palestine Hotel. It's the only Iraqi aid agency working in Iraq's 18 provinces, has 1,000 staff members and 200,000 volunteers, according to Reuters.
In another kidnapping Sunday, three members of the Adhamiyyah council were abducted and a fourth was killed when gunmen in three vehicles stopped them as they drove in Baghdad's Palestine Street around 2 p.m., according to an official with the interior ministry.
In addition, 32 bullet-riddled bodies were found Sunday in and around Baghdad, an Interior Ministry official said.
All but two were found on the west side of the city, home to many predominantly Sunni neighborhoods.
South of Baghdad, a car bomb exploded in the town of Mahmoudiya, wounding a person.
Other developments
Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi Sunday urged the U.S. to send more troops to secure Baghdad, adding that Iraqi troops were "insufficient" and too "incompetent" for the job. The appeal put al-Hashimi in direct conflict with National Security Adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie, who has said the United States must reduce its visibility in Baghdad to help quell the violence there.
The U.S. military plans to triple the number of military advisers for Iraq's army forces to 9,000, drawing the trainers from combat troops already in Iraq, Brigadier General Dana Pittard said Sunday, according to Reuters.
A top U.S. military official in Baghdad Sunday said multinational forces would turn over control of security to Iraqi forces in Najaf province by next Thursday, and all Iraqi security forces will be under the Iraqi prime minister's control by next summer.
CNN's Jomana Karadsheh and Sam Dagher contributed to this report.
Copyright 2006 CNN. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to this report.
An Iraqi group of commandos infiltrated a Red Cresent office today, and kidnapped at least 24 members of the only humanitarian organization to work in all 18 of Iraq's provinces. 6 of them have been released, a spokesperson said.

Blair was to discuss pulling troops out of Iraq within the next year or so, though thousands of Iraqis say they feel safer with British and American troops in the area.

"Our task — ours, the Americans, the whole of the coalition, the international community and the Iraqis themselves — is to make sure that the forces of terrorism don't defeat the will of the people to have a democracy," Blair said.

Britain has some 7,000 troops in Iraq, based near Basra in the south — the largest commitment of any country after the United States. More than 120 British personnel have died in the country since the original invasion in 2003.