Envoys kidnapped in Iraq
2005-07-21 14:37
Baghdad - Algeria's charge d'affaires in Iraq and a colleague were kidnapped in Baghdad on Thursday, Algerian and Iraqi officials said.
Charge d'affaires Ali Belaroussi and Ezzedin Ben Kadi were nabbed from their car.
"I was on the other side of the main road when I saw people in two cars pull the men out of their car and take them. No shots were fired," a third Algerian diplomat, Abdel Wahab Fellah, told AFP.
"I couldn't do anything. I just called the police," he said.
The kidnapping occurred near the Al-Sa'aa restaurant in the Al-Mansur district of west Baghdad at 14:10.
According to the interior ministry, the kidnappers' cars had number plates from Al-Anbar province, a rebel bastion in western Iraq.
This was the second high-profile kidnapping within a month after the abduction of Egytian ambassador-designate Ihab al-Sharif on July 2 from a Baghdad street.
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the frontman of al-Qaeda in Iraq, later claimed the abduction. Sharif's execution was announced by his kidnappers on July 7.
Within four days of Sharif's kidnapping, Bahrain's envoy was wounded in a failed kidnap attempt, while the Pakistani ambassador was fired on and the Russian ambassador's car riddled with bullets.
Iraqi insurgents launched their attacks on diplomats in a bid to isolate the Iraqi government and dissuade Arab countries from raising the level of their diplomatic representation, Iraqi officials and foreign envoys have said.
Zarqawi, who has a $25m price on his head, has claimed responsibility for a large number of the attacks, kidnappings and murders in Iraq since the United States-led invasion overthrew Saddam Hussein two years ago.