On July 15, at the Al-Nafot building in central Baghdad, 200 of Iraq’s top sporting officials met to discuss the future of the nation’s sport. They included presidents of federations, club officials and staff of the national Olympic committee and many arrived with high hopes of hammering out resolutions that would take forward the post-Saddam Hussein sporting era.

It was a swelteringly hot day and Emad Nassir Hussain, a staff member of the Iraqi Olympic Committee, took the unusual decision to wear a T-shirt and jeans, perhaps as a result of his recent trip to the United States, where his hosts had the habit of dressing down for work.

Hussain’s boss had advised him to take a position at the back of the white-walled, ground-floor conference room so that he would have a good view of events. The large room had doors at the back, a podium at the front for speakers and rows of free-standing chairs to cater for the rest of the delegates. Hussain duly took his seat at the back and patiently observed as the discussions progressed.

Shortly after 1.30pm the doors burst open and 30 armed gunmen marched in firing bullets into the air and shouting to the delegates to drop to the floor. The terrorists had worn stolen police uniforms in their approach to the building so as not to arouse suspicion, but many had donned masks by the time they entered the conference room. They took up strategic positions, many in between the rows of chairs.

Almost as a reflex reaction, Hussain had risen to his feet when the doors, just behind him, were thrust open and he asked the gunman stationed next to him a seemingly innocent question: “Who are you?” The gunman responded by slamming the butt of his rifle into the side of Hussain’s head and, as he squirmed on the floor, shot him in the groin. The bullet shattered on impact and fragments were later found dispersed around the top of his leg.

As Hussain lay bleeding, the gunmen rounded up 30 delegates and bundled them out of the room and into waiting transportation. Two bodyguards were murdered outside the building. One of the remaining officials called for an ambulance for Hussain and he was taken to a nearby hospital. Among those taken hostage were the president and secretary-general of the Iraqi Olympic Committee.

Welcome to the grim reality of sporting life in liberated Iraq.

The July 15 kidnapping is but one in a long list of atrocities perpetrated against sportsmen and officials in the past 18 months, including murders, abductions, threats and intimidation. The objective of the insurgents seems clear: to assassinate sport in the new Iraq.

I met Hussain, who has recovered from his injuries, along with Dr Tiras Anwaya, the director-general of the Iraqi Olympic Committee, at the Asian Games in Doha, Qatar. Neither man had any doubt as to the motivation of the terrorists. “The idea is to destroy the sports system in Iraq because it is symbolic of how all creeds can come together in a common cause,” Hussain said.

Anwaya concurred. “Our athletes play for the country, not for themselves,” he said. “The delegation here consists of all sections of society. We have Sunni, Shia, Kurds and Armenians, all working together under one flag. We are a powerful symbol of Iraqi unity, of how Iraq could be if we were left alone. That is something that is very dangerous for the insurgency.”

Anwaya is squat and roundshouldered with a gentle face and soft, gravelly voice. A Christian of Syrian descent, he took the fateful last-minute decision not to make the journey south from the university in Kirkuk, where he occasionally lectures, to attend the July conference. But he is no stranger to the ubiquitous violence; three months earlier he had been kidnapped on his way to work, blindfolded and held at gunpoint for three days in the desert. Had he been afraid? “In Iraq, we accepted death a long time ago,” he said, quietly.

Anwaya’s eyes often drift into the middle distance as he talks, perhaps a hint that beneath the resolute façade there is some deeply suppressed trauma. I asked if he had considered walking away. “But who would run Iraqi sport?” he said. “There are only three of us who are working now for the Olympic committee. When we leave the house we know that we may not come back, but we cannot back down.”

Although the threat of violence extends to the athletes, too, it has not prevented sportsmen stepping forward to represent their country. Later I met Ammar Ali, a javelin thrower from the southern city of Najaf, and he said that nothing would deter him from competing. “The risks do not matter because I have the more important goal of being a champion for Iraq,” he said. “Our message as athletes is to say that we are united behind our flag.”