BAGHDAD, Iraq — Only a week ago, the manager of Iraq’s national football team was receiving a hero’s welcome that Sven-Goran Eriksson could only have dreamt about.

Fresh from an unbeaten tour of Syria, Akram Ahmed Salman was being feted by the public, press, and politicians as a miracle worker. The unexpected victories against the arch-rival sent thousands of supporters into the streets firing AK–47s in celebration.

The success is remarkable for the fact that the squad is often unable to train because of violence throughout the country and the destruction of antiquated sports facilities.

It was a moment that gave hope to those who say that Iraq’s most passionately followed sport could help unite a country being pulled apart by its sectarian tensions.

But the joy has dissipated, and Mr. Salman appears to have become a victim of the opponents of the unity his work helped promote.

Death threats forced him to flee Baghdad, and he is now hiding in Kurdistan.

“I have received death threats from an unidentified militant group, which threatened me and my family if I continue training the national football team,” he said.

“I can’t continue. There is violence all around us that can strike at any time.”

As so often in Iraq, the perpetrators of the death threats are not known. Some speculate that it was Islamic fundamentalists who oppose sports because they wish to ban men wearing shorts in public.

Others say it was disagreements within the Iraqi Football Federation itself, which one side had decided was best resolved by resorting to the usual intimidation.

But by far the most likely answer is that Mr. Salman was the latest victim of those who want civil war to break out so they can achieve their aim of dividing the country into sectarian enclaves.

In recent months, Iraqi sport has found itself unwittingly at the forefront of that struggle.

Its success in recovering from the Saddam Hussein era — when the Olympic Committee building contained torture chambers, and football stars were chained to walls and given electric shocks if deemed to have played badly — has made it a target for those who dislike its universal popularity.

There has been a succession of attacks on sportsmen this year. Yesterday, 10 young footballers died when two bombs buried in a sports pitch exploded.

Earlier this year, 15 members of the Iraqi tae kwon do team were kidnapped and the national coach murdered shortly after a former wrestling champion was shot in front of his family in Basra.

In May, the national tennis coach and two of his players were killed.

The violence led to the head of the tae kwon do association, Jamal Abdul Karim, warning sportsmen to be on their guard as its unifying nature meant that Sunni and Shiite extremists resented it.

“They want youth to stop practicing sport because terrorists know that sport is the one thing that has succeeded in Iraq,” he said.

That was before he, too, fell victim to the men of violence last month.

Gunmen burst into a cultural center and kidnapped the head of the Olympic Committee, Ahmed al-Hajiya, and 50 other officials, including Mr. Karim.

The abductors’ identities are unknown, though witnesses reported some of the gunmen wore police uniforms, possibly linking them to the Shiite militias who have widely infiltrated the force.

Although a handful of officials were released, the fate of Mr. Hajiya and Mr. Karim is not known.

Yesterday, President Talabani said that Iraqi troops would assume security duties for the whole country by year’s end.